Hornish Jr. tops qualifying at Kentucky

The AssociatedPress

SPARTA, Ky. -- Sam Hornish Jr. won his third career pole and first of the season Saturday during qualifying for the Indy Racing League event at Kentucky Speedway.

Hornish drove a lap of 219.614 mph for the Belterra Casino Indy 300 to lead the closest starting field by time in IRL history.

The 20-car field is separated by 0.5367 seconds. The previous closest field was in 1999 in Atlanta, when a 25-car field was separated by 0.62 seconds.

Hornish's pole was the first of 2003 for an IRL driver with a Chevrolet engine. The Pennzoil Panther Racing driver's previous best qualifying effort this year was third, at both Homestead-Miami Speedway and Richmond International Raceway.

He won the two previous races in which he took the pole, at Chicagoland Speedway and Homestead-Miami in 2002.

Hornish's qualifying run was a bit of a surprise because the 24-year-old driver from Defiance, Ohio, had only the 15th-fastest lap time during Saturday's practice runs.

"We didn't do too much qualifying set-up stuff in the morning practices, we just really worked on our race car," said Hornish, the series champion in 2001 and 2002.

"I think we had a better race car than we did a qualifying car," Hornish said. "We'll see what happens tomorrow. Chevrolet really went out on a limb and did what they had to do to be able to put us up here and be able to be fast."

Scott Dixon, with a Toyota engine, ran a qualifying lap of 219.358 mph to earn a spot on the outside of the front row today.

"I had a very good run," Dixon said. "The car was perfectly balanced for the first lap and very loose on the second lap. I had to get out of it because I nearly lost it. I think we got as much as we could out of the car."

Marlboro Team Penske teammates Helio Castroneves and Gil de Ferran -- the winners of the last three Indianapolis 500s -- will start on the second row.

Vitor Meira had the third-fastest practice run, but crashed into the outside retaining wall in the second turn and fractured his right wrist, said IRL medical services director Henry Bock.

Meira, who drives for Johns Manville, did not try to qualify his car and was not medically cleared to drive today.

"It's kind of bittersweet, because we were good and we were quick," said Meira, 23rd in the IRL points standings. "We were right there in second or third, doing our final qualifying simulation. I just spun. I was trying hard and just spun. Sometimes, that's the way it goes."

Jeff Simmons of Western Union Speed Team won the IRL Infiniti Pro Series Kentucky 100 on Saturday, beating Cory Witherill by 0.1119 seconds. Simmons' average speed was 142.432 mph. Thiago Medeiros, Arie Luyendyk Jr. and Ed Carpenter rounded out the top five.

Tom Wood was injured during a crash on lap 52, when his car and a car driven by his teammate, Brandon Erwin, touched heading into the third turn.

Wood, 46, was airlifted to the University of Kentucky Medical Center in Lexington. Bock said Wood had fractures to his middle back, right knee, right foot and both ankles. Wood had full feeling in his extremities and was scheduled to undergo surgery Saturday night.