Kanaan sets practice pace

Scheckter's Pennzoil Panther Racing Chevy-powered Dallara had the third-quickest lap - 214.277mph - as practice began for Sunday's Michigan Indy 400 at MIS. The lap renewed the hopes for Scheckter, who has won the pole the past two years at Michigan, and Chevy, which has struggled along with Toyota this season in their efforts to keep up with Honda.

"I think Chevrolet has been working hard and it's showed," said Scheckter. "It's the beginning of the weekend, but certainly evident that Chevy is dedicated to winning and they're going to do what it takes to make sure they're running up with these other engines. For sure, we're looking much stronger now than we have."

Kanaan, the points leader heading into the 10th race of the 16-race IRL season, had the fastest lap in his Andretti Green Racing Dallara-Honda - 214.797 - around the MIS two-mile D-shaped oval. Matsuura was second fastest - 214.414 mph - in his Super Aguri Fernandez Racing Panoz G Force-Honda.

Scheckter's lap and those of Red Bull team-mates Ed Carpenter and Alex Barron (seventh and 10th fastest, respectively) were significant for Chevy, which has yet to win a pole position or a race this season. Honda has won eight consecutive races following Sam Hornish Jr's win in a Toyota in the season opener at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

"Hopefully, we can carry this momentum into the next two days and get what everybody and Chevy and Pennzoil wants, and that's a win," said Scheckter, who won at Michigan with Infiniti power and finished third last year using a Toyota.

Kanaan, who usually works on qualifying set-ups during practice while his AGR team-mates work on race set-ups, caught a good lap in race trim Friday.

"We were working on race set-up a lot and I was able to put up a pretty good lap while running behind my team-mates," he said. "I don't think that lap time says a lot because we were just working on our race set-up. Because Michigan is a superspeedway and we'll be running together in big packs, where you qualify doesn't really matter."

Matsuura, the leader in the IRL's rookie standings, finished 10th last Sunday at Milwaukee.

"This track is the second-biggest circuit in the series, and last week at Milwaukee was a completely different type of circuit," said Matsuura. "We're very confident about the race here because we have a good Honda engine and a good G Force car, a good package. I was very confident to finish in the top three today, but it doesn't mean anything. I'm thinking of how to race 200 laps. I don't think the race will be easy."

Townsend Bell was checked in the infield care center and cleared to drive after his Panther Racing Dallara-Chevrolet hit the wall on the exit of turn two.

"It just kind of got away from me," said Bell. "We'll have to have a look and see what happened. Something went wrong. I'm not really sure."