Hornish fastest in final practice
Sam Hornish Jr. was fastest again during the final practice before Saturday's Bombardier Learjet 500k at Texas Motor Speedway
Hornish, who has been the IRL IndyCar Series' dominant oval driver since the start of practice for the Indianapolis 500 last month, recorded a lap of 24.410 seconds - 214.402 mph - in his No. 6 Honda/Dallara during the second of two sessions Friday at the high-banked, 1.5-mile tri-oval.
The pole winner on Thursday night, Hornish was little more than 0.02 seconds faster than Penske teammate Helio Castroneves.
"The car has been really good in and out of traffic," said Hornish, who was fastest in eight of the nine practice sessions at Indy, and won the pole and the race.
"Today was no different. Helio also has been pretty quick, so hopefully we'll be able to work together during the race and pull away from the rest of the field. The big key to this race is going to be making it to the end."
As has been the trend this season, Hornish and Castroneves were just slightly faster than Target Chip Ganassi Racing teammates Dan Wheldon and Scott Dixon. Wheldon's No. 10 TCGR Honda/Dallara was clocked at 214.339 mph, while Dixon's No. 9 TCGR Honda/Dallara was fourth-best at 213.930.
Dixon led the afternoon session with a lap of 214.020 mph. Others that looked strong in the two sessions included both Fernandez Racing drivers, Scott Sharp and Kosuke Matsuura, Vision Racing's Tomas Scheckter, Panther Racing's Vitor Meira and Rahal Letterman Racing's Buddy Rice.
Pos Driver Make Speed Time Laps 1. Sam Hornish Jr Dallara-Honda 214.584 24.4100 33 2. Helio Castroneves Dallara-Honda 214.402 24.4307 + 0.021 44 3. Dan Wheldon Dallara-Honda 214.339 24.4379 + 0.028 36 4. Scott Dixon Dallara-Honda 213.930 24.4847 + 0.075 55 5. Scott Sharp Dallara-Honda 213.446 24.5402 + 0.130 34 6. Kosuke Matsuura Dallara-Honda 213.106 24.5793 + 0.169 37 7. Vitor Meira Dallara-Honda 213.081 24.5822 + 0.172 46 8. Buddy Rice Dallara-Honda 212.858 24.6079 + 0.198 56 9. Tomas Scheckter Dallara-Honda 212.794 24.6154 + 0.205 50 10. Danica Patrick Dallara-Honda 212.635 24.6338 + 0.224 53 11. Ed Carpenter Dallara-Honda 212.502 24.6492 + 0.239 43 12. Jeff Simmons Dallara-Honda 212.431 24.6574 + 0.247 51 13. Tony Kanaan Dallara-Honda 212.400 24.6610 + 0.251 40 14. Felipe Giaffone Dallara-Honda 211.894 24.7199 + 0.310 35 15. Dario Franchitti Dallara-Honda 211.257 24.7945 + 0.385 30 16. Marco Andretti Dallara-Honda 211.012 24.8232 + 0.413 52 17. Eddie Cheever Jr Dallara-Honda 210.765 24.8523 + 0.442 49 18. Buddy Lazier Dallara-Honda 209.949 24.9489 + 0.539 44 19. Bryan Herta Dallara-Honda 209.585 24.9922 + 0.582 22
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