KEY POINTS:
Scott Dixon and Helio Castroneves will start in the Bombardier Learjet 550 tonight in the same way they are in IndyCar Series points - 1 and 2.
Dixon, the Indianapolis 500 champion and series points leader, earned his fourth pole of the season by averaging 214.878mph (345.8km/h) during his four-lap qualifying run at the 2.4km high-banked track. Still, his 12th career pole came as a bit of a surprise for Dixon.
"Today [in practice], we were struggling," Dixon said. "Qualifying was eye-opening. I didn't think the car could do a speed like that."
Castroneves, second in points and the only driver with top-five finishes in every race, had a qualifying speed of 214.777mph (345.63km/h). His Penske team-mate Ryan Briscoe, who won last week at Milwaukee, starts third tonight.
Dixon has finished third or better in all but one race, the road course at St Petersburg when the New Zealander had mechanical problems, didn't finish and failed to lead a lap. The Target Chip Ganassi driver has led at least 67 laps in every other race.
"Coming into this year, we looked at our weakness from last year, when we didn't start as well as we needed to," Dixon said. "What we're trying to do is keep the ball rolling and try to build up a points margin right from the get-go."
Dixon has a 28-point lead over Brazil's Castroneves and a 49-point lead over English team-mate Dan Wheldon, who will start 11th.
Wheldon's qualifying run came in a back-up car and with a sore right ankle sustained when he flipped his car in practice. Hideki Mutoh will start fourth, ahead of Danica Patrick and Tomas Scheckter.
The race is the second biggest after the Indianapolis 500 and an associated race, in 2001, was cancelled "due to irresolvable concerns over the physical demands placed on the drivers at race speeds".
All but four drivers reported they had vertigo-like symptoms due to lateral G-forces from driving in excess of 230mph (370km/h) on the steep 24-degree banks.
Officials said the G-forces sustained by drivers were five times their weight, close to twice what they endure on most tracks. Twenty-one of the 25 drivers experienced some sort of inner ear or vision problems after more than 10 laps. Dixon was a CART rookie that season.
"That was crazy," he said. "It was so fast that even hanging on by yourself was almost impossible. I think Mauricio [Gugelmin] hit all four corners with his crash. What did he do, crash in two and end up in four?"
The Indy cars used this weekend will thus be about 15-20mph slower and will travel closer together. This is the Indy Racing League's version of NASCAR at Talladega, complete with drafting and frequent pack crashes.
Barreling out of the second and fourth corners with cars all around will take some getting used to for the drivers foreign to this thrill show. Thirteen of the 28 drivers have never raced like this in an Indy car.
"This is totally different," Dixon said. "And because you're so close all the time, it is easy to make a mistake and touch another car. You have to keep a conscious mind about the other cars around you."
