IRL: Starting line-up for Indy500 finalised

By Andy Darley

Monday, May 19th, 2008

A last-gasp crash by Pacific Coast’s Mario Dominguez saved the blushes of Marty Roth as the final qualifiers for the 92nd Indy500 were confirmed on bump day.

Dominguez, the last driver to make a qualifying attempt, was running fast enough to bump Roth from the 33rd and final qualifying place when he crashed entering the second corner.

Earlier in the day Vision Racing’s AJ Foyt IV, whose previous qualifying efforts had been hampered by errors and gearbox problems, comfortably bumped his way into the field – but later crashed in a ball of flames when running practice laps, thanks to a failure in his fuel system.

He suffered only minor burns and will race – and he also had the consolation of winning the $10,000 Red Gold Red Zone Award for the day’s fastest single lap.

Competition for the last two places in the race was fierce during the final half-hour, with previous winner Buddy Lazier seizing the 32nd spot with an unexpectedly fast series of laps, and Roth just surviving the challenge of Roger Yasukawa and the unlucky Dominguez.

Final qualifying positions

Row	Inside	Middle	Outside
1	Scott Dixon Target Chip Ganassi Racing	Dan Wheldon Target Chip Ganassi Racing	Ryan Briscoe Team Penske
2	Hélio Castroneves Team Penske	Danica Patrick Andretti Green Racing	Tony Kanaan Andretti Green Racing
3	Marco Andretti Andretti Green Racing	Vitor Meira Panther Racing	Hideki Mutoh Andretti Green Racing
4	Ed Carpenter Vision Racing	Tomas Scheckter Luczo Dragon Racing	Townsend Bell Dreyer & Reinbold Racing
5	Graham Rahal Newman/Haas/Lanigan	Darren Manning A.J. Foyt Enterprises	Bruno Junqueira Dale Coyne Racing
6	Justin Wilson Newman/Haas/Lanigan	Buddy Rice Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	Davey Hamilton Vision Racing
7	Alex Lloyd Rahal Letterman / CGR	Ryan Hunter-Reay Rahal Letterman Racing	John Andretti Roth Racing
8	Sarah Fisher Sarah Fisher Racing	Will Power KV Racing Technology	Jeff Simmons A.J. Foyt Enterprises
9	Oriol Servià KV Racing Technology	E. J. Viso HVM Racing	Milka Duno Dreyer & Reinbold Racing
10	Mario Moraes Dale Coyne Racing	Enrique Bernoldi Conquest Racing	Jaime Camara Conquest Racing
11	A. J. Foyt IV Vision Racing	Buddy Lazier Hemelgarn Racing	Marty Roth Roth Racing

This entry was posted on Monday, May 19th, 2008 at 4:32 pm and is filed under IndyCar Series. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Author: Andy Darley. Ex-journalist, fan of David Coulthard and anyone who ever drove or tested for Minardi and didn't say rude things about the team afterwards. Owns a Triumph Spitfire and hopes that, one day, it'll be on the road again. Andy has written 606 articles for us.

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