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Friday, June 8
No place like Texas for IRL drivers
Associated Press

FORT WORTH, Texas -- For Indy Racing League drivers, there is no place quite like Texas Motor Speedway.

Packs of 8 to 12 cars going more than 210 mph lap after lap while separated by only inches have become the norm on the 1-mile high-banked quadoval at Texas, where the Casino Magic 500 is Saturday night.

"You usually look in the mirror and see one or two cars. Here, you see a bunch of cars," said Airton Dare. "Go into the corner and there's one guy right behind you. Get in the straightaway, he's like 10 positions behind with a bunch of other guys between us."

Robby McGehee finished second in last year's Casino Magic 500 by about half of a car length after a final six-lap, nose-to-tail, side-by-side sprint to the finish line with Scott Sharp. Not long before that, McGehee was in 12th position about four rows behind the leader only 50 yards in front of him.

"It's nuts, but it's fun," McGehee said. "After you get done, you're thinking, `Oh my gosh, that was crazy.' But I just love coming here. The track is awesome and great for racing as we've shown the last couple of times here."

While the car setup doesn't have to be perfect because of the sloping track that can mask mistakes, mental preparation for the drivers is on a different level for Texas.

"After last year, I think everyone comes in knowing that's what it's going to be like," Sharp said. "There is obviously a higher awareness."

While CART canceled its race at Texas six weeks ago over concerns of driver safety with practice speeds reaching more than 236 mph, the IRL has had its closest and fastest races in Texas.

Sharp beat McGehee by .059 seconds, the closest IRL finish ever, in the race last June that had a series record 31 lead changes and no accidents. Sharp's average speed of 169.182 mph was a record until Scott Goodyear ran at 175.276 to win the October season finale at Texas.

Kelley Racing teammates Mark Dismore and Sharp will start from the front row Saturday night.

Dismore earned his fourth career pole with a qualifying lap of 215.508 mph -- 18 mph slower than the qualifying mark set by Kenny Brack before CART's race-day cancellation. Sharp was the only other to break the 215-mph barrier.

IRL drivers, at Texas for their eighth race in five years, have never suffered from the dizziness and disorientation that affected most of the CART drivers in their turbocharged cars in April.

"The speeds we are running here are about all we need to run. It is the right window of speed for this track and our setup," Dismore said. "You don't have to run 235 mph to put on a good show."

When former CART driver Al Unser Jr. climbed out of his car last June after his Texas debut, the two-time Indianapolis 500 winner loudly proclaimed it as the most fun he had ever had in an open wheel race car.

Eddie Cheever, who calls Texas one of his favorite tracks, qualified third for the Casino Magic 500 at 214.926 mph.

"I think the CART drivers were absolutely right to say it wasn't safe for them to race here at the speeds they were going," Cheever said. "I'm 100 percent behind them. My beef is not with the drivers, but with the sanctioning body.

"Any idiot with a 10th-grade education that has any idea of mathematics could have worked out what was going to happen," he said. "It's not that complicated."

Texas Motor Speedway has filed a multimillion dollar lawsuit against CART, and one of the track's contention is that CART would have known about the potential problems had it done wide-scale testing.

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	Notebook: Four IRL drivers doing double duty Dismore earns pole for Casino Magic 500 Casino Magic 500 starting lineup