Medeiros the final Indy 500 qualifier

"I never thought I could be in it," said Medeiros, a 23-year-old Brazilian who has been one of the IRL IndyCar Series' best - but largely unemployed - prospects since winning the IRL Infiniti Pro Series championship in 2004.

"I've been here the last two years, and now here I am. We were the drama this year."

Medeiros' participation in the drama was questionable for about 24 hours. He crashed the No. 18 PDM Racing Honda/Panoz practice on Thursday, and the team had to borrow parts from other teams and piece together a car.

In the meantime, rumors swirled that Medeiros wouldn't be the one attempting to qualify the car when and if it returned to the track.

But on Sunday, he was in the car, trying to get it above the 215 mph minimum. Eventually, with 47 minutes remaining in the session, he recorded a four-lap qualifying average of 215.729 mph and was in the field. Tentaively, anyway.

Shortly after Medeiros qualified, Ryan Briscoe, dressed in a firesuit, emerged on pit road with the No. 48 A.J. Foyt Enterprises Honda/Dallara. However, he never made it on the track. Instead, the plan was nixed, and Medeiros and PDM emerged unscathed.

"I know every square inch of the ceiling tile in my bedroom," said team owner Paul Diatlovich. "This is a 24/7 opportunity. We are in the business to go racing, but it's extremely difficult to come up with the funding for this."

With 22 minutes remaining in the session, Marty Roth, who had spun three times in three days last week without hitting anything, spun and hit something. His crash in the exit of Turn 1 brought out a yellow flag and eliminated one of the possibilities to bump Medeiros.

Nearly as significant as the last-minute drama surrounding the final position was a rare spin by pole-winner Sam Hornish Jr., who slid sideways on the exit of Turn 1 in his backup car before bumping the wall in Turn 2.

The incident won't affect Hornish much - he won't return to the track until Friday, and he didn't wreck the car he qualified Saturday - but it was the only crash among the 29 qualifiers who practiced Sunday, the last full day of practice before the race.

"We got stuck behind a few people who slowed down," Hornish explained. "I slowed up, too, and when I got back on the gas, the back of the car came out from under me. Things like this are a part of racing. The bright side is we got this out of the way early."

If anything, Hornish's crash provided the day's best comedy: "I found out I can't do the sideways slide without hitting anything as good as Marty Roth can," Hornish said.