Open-wheelers make Phoenix race

Carpentier will make his first Cup race on oval on Sunday after putting his car 24th on the grid, improving around half a second from his best time in the only practice session he had, before taking on the tough two-lap qualifying.

"I'm really happy," said Carpentier. "For me in my career this is the happiest moment to make this race. I didn't know if I was going to make it this morning and we made it and I want to say thanks to (Nextel Cup veteran) Kenny Schrader. He's been a great help this weekend.

"This guys are so good at what they do so we need to make laps, as many laps as we can and get ready for next season. We have a lot of testing over the winter, I'll run the Busch at Homestead but just to do the race this weekend, just to do laps, run around and see how it is, feel everything and go to the next one."

Sam Hornish Jr finally succeeded at making his Cup debut, taking 26th place on the grid at the venue of his NASCAR debut a year ago in the Busch Series.

The former IRL IndyCar Series and Indy 500 champion will also be competing tomorrow in the Busch race. He will be announced this weekend as Penske's third driver in the Sprint Cup next year.

"Yeah, there's announcements going on and all that stuff, but we're here to try to win the Busch race and get some seat time and all that in the Cup car," Hornish said.

"We just keep taking our time and trying to learn as much as we can. It's been frustrating, but we knew it was going to be tough and we'll keep our heads up."

Meanwhile, Jacques Villeneuve qualified just behind Hornish in 27th place with the No. 27 UNICEF Bill Davis Racing Toyota. This will be his second Cup race of the year, having started sixth at Talladega last month, where he also finished 21st and on the lead lap.

The former Formula One world champion made a similar improvement to Carpentier's on his qualifying lap relative to his pace in the morning practice. The Canadian will be competing in the Truck race, which will be his sixth race in the series this year.

"It's definitely going to be a tough track to drive on, but it's a lot of fun," Villeneuve said. "After practice this morning we got better and I'm very happy.

"We weren't very good this morning. The car was going sideways a lot and it wasn't very quick. We changed it for qualifying and I didn't know what to expect -- it worked out fine.

"The thing was to get in the show and now we have all day tomorrow to work on the car and see where we can run with long runs. In the trucks we are competitive in race trim and hopefully in these cars we can be, too."

Carpentier, Hornish and Villeneuve are racing at Phoenix with the Car of Tomorrow in preparation for their first full season in the Sprint Cup next year. The CoT will be raced full-time in 2008.