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Qualifying: Brack takes last lap pole

CART's two-pronged qualifying format came to the fore at Road America on Saturday as Kenny Brack snatched his fifth pole of the year on his final qualifying lap

Going into that final lap, Chip Ganassi Racing team mates Memo Gidley and Bruno Junqueira, who had qualified in the first group, had the front row locked up. But no fewer than seven drivers beat Gidley's time as the 4.048-mile road course got drier by the minute.

Rain had soaked the track an hour before qualifying was set to begin, but track conditions were quite similar for both qualifying groups thanks to intermittent sprinkles. The rain let off enough for the second group qualifiers to gain a small advantage, but only at the very end.

Gidley set the benchmark with a lap of 2m6.865s, some 26 seconds off of Gil de Ferran's best practice lap in the morning. He then watched as his name slipped down the timing monitors on the last lap.

"The conditions are out of my hands," Gidley said. "We took advantage of what the conditions gave us in the first session and got the most out of the car. That's all you can ask ­ to finish first in your session."

The second group thought they were out of luck when Dario Franchitti spun off late in the session. But the CART Safety Team got the Scot's car out of harm's way in time for the leaders to fit in an out-lap and a single flyer. With the track drying by the second, Brack led the charge on Gidley's mark. He clocked 2m03.531s for an average speed of 117.969mph. Alex Tagliani wound up second, followed by rookie Scott Dixon, Gil de Ferran, Cristiano da Matta and Helio Castroneves.

"I was right behind Dario when he went off, and I was actually thinking of going into pit lane," Brack stated. "But there wasn't a red flag so I kept going, and then the red flag came out. That let me cool the tyres down, and we were ready to go for one more lap at the end.

"In these conditions you can help the car a little bit, but it's most important to find the dry line. We timed it pretty well, because we were one of the last cars out there, so it worked out."

Brack was fourth fastest in the Friday morning practice session, but he has barely cracked the top 10 since then. But he is confident that he and Team Rahal will be in good shape for the race ­ wet or dry.

"I think it's going to be pretty good," he said. "We weren't so fast as the Penskes for most of the sessions, and I don't know how fast we are compared to them. But we're a top-three-or-four car for sure, and if we can start up front and stay there, then it's going to be pretty good."

Tagliani and the Forsythe team made steady improvement throughout the day after struggling on Friday. His team mate Patrick Carpentier actually looked like he was going to take the pole, having turned the fastest lap on the penultimate lap of qualifying. But he spun off at Turn 5 on his last lap.

Tagliani said he would have been faster, but he was slowed by Helio Castroneves on both of his final two laps.

"I caught him at Canada Corner and left a big gap, but I caught him again at the same place on my last lap and it cost me five or six tenths," Tagliani said. "I was much faster than he was for the last segment of the race track.

"It's tricky to run in the wet here because it's a long lap and the conditions change from corner to corner," he added. "Some places, like Turn 14, dry out really quickly and the line with the rubber has a lot of grip. Then you get to the places where there's a lot of tree cover and the track is still soaked. I had a couple of big moments at the Kink."

Third on the grid represents Dixon's best qualifying performance in what has been a very impressive rookie season. This is the 21-year-old New Zealander's first-ever visit to Elkhart Lake, and like almost everyone, he holds the circuit in high regard.

"I've been spending a lot of time learning the track, so we don't really know how fast our car is," Dixon admitted. "I guess we'll find out tomorrow.

"Conditions like this, when you practice all weekend in the dry and then you go out in the wet, make it very difficult. It was definitely very greasy when we started out, and it was pretty exciting the first few times around."

De Ferran, who was consistently the fastest man on Friday and Saturday in the dry, couldn't be too disappointed about fourth on the grid given the lottery-like conditions ­ especially after indulging in a pair of spins early in the session.

"It wasn't looking pretty for a while," Gil admitted. "But we were able to improve the car for the final laps. We knew going into qualifying that it would be a last lap special. In these conditions you always know you're going to go for it on the last lap. There's a lot more pressure because you know that you can't afford to make a mistake, but that's all part of the job. It's unfortunate it had to rain because the car has been so good all weekend in the dry conditions."

Da Matta was fifth, but put it down to the conditions rather than a brilliant race car.

"I don't think the wet conditions helped us or hurt us car-wise," he said. "I think others just didn't get as good use out of the conditions and timing as we did. The track was at its best on the absolute last lap and I was one of the last guys to complete my lap so that was good. Considering where we were yesterday, we are more than happy to start fifth."

Castroneves has struggled to match his team mate's pace over the last two days, but he lines up directly behind him on the grid.

"I really went for it on my last lap, but I was the first guy out of the pits so the cars behind me actually had a drier track and were able to put down faster lap times," Helio said. "In the end, I'm happy and we'll see what happens tomorrow. We aren't going to try anything crazy especially given my history at this track on the first lap."

Michael Andretti, who is a bit of a Road America specialist with three wins here in his career, was seventh fastest courtesy of a last gasp effort.

"Thank God we had that last little bit there at the end," he said. "Seventh isn't too bad ­ we can win from there."

Those singing a less happy tune included the Patrick Racing duo of Jimmy Vasser and Roberto Moreno, who ran so well in practice. They qualified 11th and 14th, sandwiching Carpentier and the surprising Tora Takagi, who spent most of the qualifying session driving a mud-splattered Reynard-Toyota after an early off-course excursion.

Other notables in the back half of the grid included Tony Kanaan in 17th, the Italian duo of Max Papis and Alex Zanardi in 22nd and 23rd, and Team Green's Paul Tracy and Dario Franchitti, back in 24th and 25th after both spinning off. They headed only Adrian Fernandez, who never managed to complete a qualifying lap.

Dry weather is forecast for Sunday's 55-lap race.

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