Hornish still fastest at Indy

Sam Hornish Jr. is still fastest, his teammate isn't far behind, and rain is still toying with preparations for the 90th Indianapolis 500.

All but three of the 34 drivers who will attempt to qualify this weekend practiced Wednesday, the first chance teams had to circle the track since both days of qualifying were rained out last weekend.

Top teams concentrated primarily on race setups, causing a noticeable drop in speed from last week, when teams were focused on qualifying.

Once again, Hornish and his No. 6 Marlboro Team Penske Honda/Dallara were fastest of the day with a lap of 224.381 mph, followed closely by Helio Castroneves and the No. 3T Penske Honda/Dallara.

Once again, rain brought a premature end to the session, as a thunderstorm cut about 90 minutes off the practice time.

"We're just trying to make sure we've got everything lined up for race day," Hornish said. "The rain we had last week threw a wrench into everything. Today was a lot of trying to figure out the right place to be and just trying to be consistent."

The rain didn't prevent 31 cars from recording 1,466 practice laps Wednesday, by far the busiest day since the Speedway opened May 7.

It was the first track time of the month for several second-week entries, including Jon Herb, Airton Dare, Jeff Bucknum and Jaques Lazier. Only Max Papis, who was named to a second Cheever Racing car Tuesday, P.J. Jones and P.J. Chesson didn't get on the track.

Hornish, who missed the first few hours of the practice session to attend the funeral of his grandmother, got up to speed quickly. He ran just 57 laps, keeping him well under the 1,200-mile limit.

"There were a couple of times when I came up on some guys pretty quickly," Hornish said. "You just have to figure out which side to take. It's part of this whole deal. Seat time is the most valuable thing you can have in racing."

Others who recorded strong laps Wednesday included Scott Sharp, who went 223.293 mph in the No. 8 Delphi Fernandez Racing Honda/Dallara, and Buddy Rice and Dan Wheldon, who, like Castroneves, worked with their T-cars Wednesday. Townsend Bell, Tony Kanaan, Scott Dixon, Dario Franchitti and Tomas Scheckter rounded out Wednesday's top 10.

More afternoon showers are expected Thursday, but weather forecasts show clear, dry conditions for Friday's practice and Saturday's qualifying session.

"If we get a couple of more hours of this, we're going to be in trouble," Dario Franchitti said as Wednesday's thunderstorm chased team members to Gasoline Alley. "Every chance we get, we've got to focus on the race and work on our setup. I don't think we've got the time to make any inroads in our qualifying setup."

Practice resumes Thursday at noon EDT.

Pos  Driver             Make           Speed (mph)
 1.  Sam Hornish Jr     Dallara-Honda  224.381
 2.  Helio Castroneves  Dallara-Honda  223.392
 3.  Scott Sharp        Dallara-Honda  223.293
 4.  Buddy Rice         Panoz-Honda    222.895
 5.  Dan Wheldon        Dallara-Honda  222.615
 6.  Townsend Bell      Dallara-Honda  222.511
 7.  Tony Kanaan        Dallara-Honda  222.488
 8.  Scott Dixon        Dallara-Honda  222.227
 9.  Dario Franchitti   Dallara-Honda  222.084
10.  Tomas Scheckter    Dallara-Honda  221.815
11.  Jeff Simmons       Panoz-Honda    221.802
12.  Vitor Meira        Dallara-Honda  221.536
13.  Ed Carpenter       Dallara-Honda  221.505
14.  Eddie Cheever Jr   Dallara-Honda  221.422
15.  Kosuke Matsuura    Dallara-Honda  221.226
16.  Bryan Herta        Dallara-Honda  220.835
17.  Michael Andretti   Dallara-Honda  220.822
18.  Marco Andretti     Dallara-Honda  220.470
19.  Felipe Giaffone    Dallara-Honda  220.347
20.  Danica Patrick     Panoz-Honda    219.526
21.  Jaques Lazier      Panoz-Honda    218.655
22.  Jeff Bucknum       Dallara-Honda  218.438
23.  Larry Foyt         Dallara-Honda  217.591
24.  Thiago Medeiros    Panoz-Honda    216.724
25.  Marty Roth         Dallara-Honda  215.823
26.  Buddy Lazier       Dallara-Honda  215.790
27.  Stephan Gregoire   Panoz-Honda    215.330
28.  Arie Luyendyk Jr   Panoz-Honda    215.306
29.  Al Unser Jr        Dallara-Honda  214.205
30.  Airton Dare        Panoz-Honda    210.064
31.  Jon Herb           Panoz-Honda    204.824