INDIANAPOLIS — Winning the pole at Indianapolis isn’t as important to Tony Kanaan as it once was.
Maybe, it’s because he still hasn’t won the race. Maybe, he’s just a little more patient.
“Five years ago, I came here and just wanted to be the fastest guy,” Kanaan said after qualifying on Saturday. “Then you race, and you realize that that really doesn’t matter if you are not the fastest guy on the last lap (of the race). Do I want the pole? Yes, I do. Is it going to be a big deal if we don’t get it? Not really. I try to look at the big picture.”
Kanaan won the pole in 2005 but finished eighth that year. His best finish was second to Buddy Rice in 2004, when the race was halted by rain 20 laps from the end.
He qualified Saturday at 224.794 mph, slowing after a first lap average that at the time would have put him on the tentative pole, but he ended up in the sixth qualifying position among the 11 who earned early spots in the May 25 lineup. Kanaan had never started worse than fifth in his six previous races at Indianapolis.
“We’re not in the position that we wanted to be, but we’re inside the top 11, which is the right place to be right now,” he said. “It was a decent run, very consistent.”
Qualifying for positions 12-22 will be on Sunday and for positions 23-33 on May 17. The final day of qualifying, May 18, will be for bumping, regardless which day a driver qualified.
Kanaan’s Andretti Green teammates Danica Patrick, Marco Andretti and rookie Hideki Mutoh qualified fifth, seventh and ninth, respectively.
CLOSE CALLS: A.J. Foyt IV, grandson of car owner and four-time winner A.J. Foyt, and former pole-winner Bruno Junqueira spun on their first tries at qualifying.
Foyt’s car narrowly missed the wall and fishtailed back across the track without making contact on his warmup lap.
Junqueira, who started from the pole in 2002, had just completed his warmup lap at a relatively slow 207.8 mph and spun without contact in the first turn.
Neither driver was injured, and neither was among the 11 who eventually qualified.
LLOYD RELEASED: Rookie driver Alex Lloyd, injured in a hard crash during practice Friday, was released from Methodist Hospital on Saturday. With medical clearance by the IRL, he could be back on the track when practice resumes Wednesday.
The 23-year-old Englishman, last year’s Indy Lights champion, completed a lap at more than 223 mph and lost control of his Dallara in the first turn. He was examined at the track’s infield hospital, then taken to Methodist for further tests after complaining of neck pain and a headache.
All tests were negative, although he was kept overnight in the hospital for observation.
HAPPY MOM’S DAY: Driver Ed Carpenter’s mother isn’t only his mom; she’s also his boss.
Carpenter’s mother is Laura George, a co-owner of the Vision Racing team with her husband, Speedway boss Tony George. The 27-year-old Carpenter has driven for the family’s race team since it was formed in 2005.
“My mom is what holds my family together,” Carpenter said Saturday, the day before Mother’s Day. “We’re a close family because of her. She’s just such a big part of every day and everything I do.”
A nervous Laura George tried to discourage her son’s racing career when he was a teenager by buying him whatever passenger car he wanted, hoping that would satisfy his automotive ambitions, Carpenter recalled. It didn’t work.
“Eventually she realized that this is what I wanted to do, and she supported me 100 percent,” he said.
Carpenter’s best finishes in four previous races at his family’s track was 11th in both 2005 and 2006. He was 31st as a rookie with Cheever Racing in 2004 and 17th last year after a crash on the 165th lap. He qualified Saturday in the 10th spot for the race.
DE FERRAN RETURNS: Former Indy winner Gil de Ferran will return to the cockpit next weekend for the first time since he retired from racing almost five years ago.
The 41-year-old Brazilian will drive for his own newly formed Acura team in the American Le Mans Series sports car race in Utah. It will be his first race since he won his IndyCar Series finale at Texas Motor Speedway in 2003.
“It’s funny, because it seems like it was yesterday,” de Ferran said.
“I pride myself on being rational guy … under every circumstance, no matter how desperate or elating it may be, but at the end of the day, emotion is what drives you,” he said of his return to Indianapolis. “The circumstances that led to the 500 that year and the whole buildup of the month is what I remember most.”
The Indy runner-up in 2001 and 10th in 2002, de Ferran broke his neck and back in a crash at Phoenix in 2003 and missed the race before Indianapolis. Still in pain, he qualified 10th, took the lead for the first time on the 170th lap and beat Penske teammate Helio Castroneves to the checkered flag by 0.299 second.
“When you come from a hospital bed with everything aching to winning the biggest race in the world, that feeling is going to stay with me forever,” he recalled.
MISSING TRACY: Drag racer Ron Capps was impressed with his first trip to Pole Day qualifying at Indy, even though his favorite driver was missing.
“Paul Tracy is my favorite, but he’s not here,” Capps said. “So I guess my favorite would be Davey Hamilton. What a great story that would be.”
Hamilton, a two-time series runner-up, was out of racing almost six years after a devastating crash at Texas in 2001. He qualified Saturday at 223.287 mph but was bumped by his Vision Racing teammate Ed Carpenter.
Tracy, the Indy runner-up in 2002, is rumored to be in line for a possible deal with Walker Racing for the second week of qualifying.
SPARK PLUGS: When Scott Dixon withdrew his first qualification average of 225.178 mph to go for the pole, he forfeited what would have been a record for the most consistent qualifying in Indy history. The difference between his fast lap and slow lap on the first qualification was 0.0049 seconds, which would have broken Bobby Rahal’s 1992 record of 0.006 seconds. The fast-slow difference on Dixon’s second attempt was 0.0948 seconds. … Mario Andretti will receive the 2008 Legendary Driver Award at a dinner Monday night to benefit the Sam Schmidt Paralysis Foundation. … Former driver Tero Palmroth, the only Indy starter from Finland, visited the track Saturday. “I told Tony (George) this place has great memories,” said Palmroth, who raced at Indianapolis in 1988-91. “It feels like home here.” … Actor Paul Newman, 83-year-old co-owner of Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing, called the merger of IRL and Champ Car “absolutely necessary for both groups. It’s tragic that it didn’t happen sooner, but it’s good that it at least happened when it did.”
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