Dan Wheldon continued to dominate IndyCar Series action at Homestead Miami Speedway by taking his fifth career pole as preliminary action concluded for Saturday night's XM Satellite Radio Indy 300. After leading both practice sessions, the Ganassi Racing driver and two time defending event champion outran Penske's Sam Hornish, Jr., by turning a lap of 214.322miles per hour (24.9438 seconds).

“Homestead obviously seems to be a very good place for me,” said Wheldon of the 1.5 mile high banked oval near the Florida keys. “Right now, everybody has zero points and nobody has won the race yet so we'll have to see what I can do.”

Hornish scored his seventh front row start in the last eight races but last year's IndyCar Series champ is getting a little frustrated here at Homestead.

“I'd have been a lot happier if I'd have been on the pole, but we're close,” said Hornish. “We were second here in the preseason testing, second in both sessions today, second in qualifying. I guess if worse comes to worse and we finish second tomorrow that'll be ok.”

Hornish did note that second is only 'ok', 'as long as we win Indy.' because he thinks that would still give him his fourth IndyCar Series title.

To win another championship, the man Hornish will need to beat is increasingly looking to be Wheldon. Said Hornish, “Dan is putting up a really good fight and we now he is going to be strong throughout the year.”

Wheldon agreed and while he is friendly with Hornish, he acknowledged that some sort of rivalry is starting to build between the two young champions.

“With a rivalry there is always bickering...I think there is an extreme amount of mutual respect out there. I would call it a rivalry perhaps, but I would call it a very good rivalry,” said Wheldon who expressed an interest in also dabbling in stock cars like Hornish has recently. “I think he's a very talented driver and he's obviously in a good organization. I'd like to think that we'll really kind of push each other to another level this year. But, I'm certainly not going to let him get the better of me this year, or at least I'm going to try to stop that.”

The Andretti Green Racing team was the surprise of qualifying as Dario Franchitti was followed by Tony Kanaan and Marco Andretti to round out the top five. The only anomaly being their fourth car with team newcomer Danica Patrick who qualified 14th.

"The Motorola car felt good. It was stuck the whole way around. It just didn't go very fast,” said Danica. “I don't know what the problem is. It felt better than it felt all day, so I don't have an answer. I drove exactly where I wanted to drive. I took it around the bottom. I made sure that the car was still rolling free. I really couldn't have done much else."

Danica was actually out qualified by a surprisingly strong Sarah Fisher who timed in ninth quick, just ahead of AJ Foyt, IV, who was also uncharacteristically fast.

For Fisher, her return to full-time status as an IndyCar Series driver has gone smoothly, and she is even faster than team-mate Buddy Rice who qualified 15th.

IndyCar Series Qualifying Times:

 1	Dan Wheldon (10)	...	24.9438	214.322 
 2	Sam Hornish Jr (6)	0.0028	24.9466	214.298 
 3	Dario Franchitti (27)	0.0709	25.0147	213.714 
 4	Tony Kanaan (11)	0.0991	25.0429	213.474 
 5	Marco Andretti (26)	0.1838	25.1276	212.754 
 6	Scott Dixon (9)	        0.1863	25.1301	212.733 
 7	Scott Sharp (8)	        0.1993	25.1431	212.623 
 8	Helio Castroneves (3)	0.2021	25.1459	212.599 
 9	Sarah Fisher (5)	0.2137	25.1575	212.501 
 10	A J Foyt IV (22)	0.2722	25.216	212.008 
 11	Vitor Meira (4)	        0.3005	25.2443	211.771 
 12	Tomas Scheckter (2)	0.3213	25.2651	211.596 
 13	Buddy Rice (15)	        0.3269	25.2707	211.549 
 14	Danica Patrick (7)	0.341	25.2848	211.431 
 15	Ed Carpenter (20)	0.3537	25.2975	211.325 
 16	Jeff Simmons (17)	0.3802	25.324	211.104 
 17	Darren Manning (14)	0.486	25.4298	210.226 
 18	Kosuke Matsuura (55)	0.4917	25.4355	210.179 
 19	Marty Roth (25)	        0.5744	25.5182	209.498 
 20	Alex Barron (98)	0.8035	25.7473	207.633 

ORS / CAPSIS International