Surprise, surprise

Scott Dixon surprised the IndyCar Series field by going from twelfth in the first practice to qualifying on the pole for Sunday afternoon's Iowa Corn 250 at the new Iowa Speedway.

Dixon beat Helio Castroneves by a mere 0.0085 seconds as the top nine all qualified within a single tenth of a second.

"We didn't think we had a car for the pole, but definitely the top five," said Dixon who circled the seven eighth's of a mile oval in 17.6486 seconds (182.360 miles per hour). "Once I saw my first lap I was like, 'wow, this thing is definitely quick.' We put a huge emphasis on starting from the front at Iowa because of yesterday and learning how tough it is to pass."

Castroneves, the first driver to qualify, who twice considered aborting his run because his car was on the edge of being too loose, will instead start the race on the outside of the front row.

"It was very tough because we were the first ones to go out and the car was really loose," said Castroneves. "For 17 seconds I was not breathing."

The tight, high grip Iowa Speedway showed it's ability to level the field as the first five spots were taken by five different teams. Dixon's Ganassi team was widely split as he will start first while teammate Dan Wheldon was just ninth.

Other teams represented were Penske (Castroneves), third quickest Dario Franchitti (Andretti Green), fourth fastest Scott Sharp (Rahal Letterman), and Vision Racing's Ed Carpenter surprisingly rounding out the top five.

Jeff Simmons qualified sixth in what is basically the home race for his ethanol industry sponsors. The race itself is backed by a coalition of farmers known as the Iowa Corn Growers, so seeing the ethanol car toward the front is very important for them.

"We have a lot of support at this race and we are pleased to have been able to qualify well," said Simmons. "This is a race that we have had our eyes on from the time they announced the schedule and now we need to transfer today's success into tomorrow's race."

Tony Kanaan, an early favorite, qualified just seventh, and will have considerable traffic to work through in Sunday's race. Passing has been described as difficult here at Iowa mostly due to the extreme level of grip on the lower groove.

"It just makes the radius of the turn too long when trying to run on the outside," said Dixon. That said, during practice, it was traffic that opened up opportunities, something many of the drivers will be hoping for on race day.

"What is going to be different tomorrow is the temperature," said Wheldon of the expected 20 degrees Fahrenheit increase in the air temp from qualifying to the race. "Right now it is very difficult to pass. Tomorrow a driver is going to have to be very aggressive, but I hope everybody is going to be sensible at the same time."

Sunday's race starts at noon local time.

Qualifying Saturday for the Iowa Corn Indy 250 IndyCar Series event on the 0.875-mile Iowa Speedway, with starting position, car number in parentheses, driver, chassis-engine and speed:

1. (9) Scott Dixon, Dallara-Honda, 182.360
2. (3) Helio Castroneves, Dallara-Honda, 182.272
3. (27) Dario Franchitti, Dallara-Honda, 182.043
4. (8) Scott Sharp, Dallara-Honda, 181.713
5. (20) Ed Carpenter, Dallara-Honda, 181.644
6. (17) Jeff Simmons, Dallara-Honda, 181.527
7. (11) Tony Kanaan, Dallara-Honda, 181.516
8. (6) Sam Hornish Jr., Dallara-Honda, 181.506
9. (10) Dan Wheldon, Dallara-Honda, 181.503
10. (22) A.J. Foyt IV, Dallara-Honda, 181.188
11. (7) Danica Patrick, Dallara-Honda, 180.974
12. (26) Marco Andretti, Dallara-Honda, 180.936
13. (4) Vitor Meira, Dallara-Honda, 180.878
14. (2) Tomas Scheckter, Dallara-Honda, 180.794
15. (14) Darren Manning, Dallara-Honda, 180.615
16. (55) Kosuke Matsuura, Dallara-Honda, 180.221
17. (15) Buddy Rice, Dallara-Honda, 178.787
18. (5) Sarah Fisher, Dallara-Honda, 178.632
19. (23) Milka Duno, Dallara-Honda, 175.227

ORS / CAPSIS International