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| | Sunday, October 17 | |||||
| Lineup
FORT WORTH, Texas -- Greg Ray overcame a series of engine problems to win the pole Saturday for the Indy Racing League's season-ending Mall.com 500, nudging himself closer to the series title.
The three points Ray earned for the pole upped his lead in the
season standings to 16 over defending champion Kenny Brack and
virtually eliminated three others.
Now, only Ray, Brack and Sam Schmidt go into Sunday's race at
Texas Motor Speedway with a legitimate chance to win the title and
a $500,000 bonus.
"It's going to be a Texas-sized shootout," said Ray, who's
from nearby Plano.
Ray was surprised to do so well in qualifying after blowing out
two motors and losing a third to electrical problems. Instead of
using a backup car, he opted to go with the engine that was being
saved for Sunday.
"We just sat down and said what do we do?" he said. "We
decided to go for it. I can't believe it."
Mark Dismore, the polesitter when the IRL raced here in June,
was leading the field again with a speed of 216.071 mph until Ray
beat him with a lap of 216.107.
This is the eighth race of 10 this season that Dismore will
start in the first two rows.
"I'll gladly trade a second place in qualifying for a win,"
said Dismore, whose best finish is third. "I'm sick and tired of
coming up short."
Scott Goodyear and Schmidt will start on the second row, with
Brack and Davey Hamilton in the third.
"We've been tweaking and tweaking all weekend long, and that
gave us a bit more confidence," Brack said. "It wasn't close
enough for the pole."
Qualifying 17th will be Sarah Fisher, who will become the second
female driver in IRL history. At 19, she's also one of the youngest
of either gender.
"We did OK," she said. "But I wanted to go faster."
Weather could be a factor Sunday. The mostly sunny skies and
temperatures around 90 the last few days are expected to give way
to rain and 60 degrees. What's been a light breeze is likely to
blow harder.
"It's going to be very interesting," Dismore said.
Ray has finished second in two of the last three races here and
came into the weekend as the race favorite.
He wasn't living up to it, though, as he was more than 2 mph off
the best practice time Friday and 1.8 mph behind the leader in
Saturday's morning practice.
He began to feel better before he even got behind the wheel to
qualify when Schmidt -- Ray's houseguest this weekend -- bumped Brack
out of the top three. That meant Ray's top challenger couldn't earn
any points Saturday.
Ray ended up winning his fourth pole of the year. Those 12
points go a long way in putting him atop the standings.
"Every single point is very, very crucial," Ray said.
Ray has 258 points to Brack's 242 and Schmidt's 225. First-place
Sunday is worth 50 points with another two going to the driver who
leads the most laps.
Scott Sharp, Scott Goodyear and Buddy Lazier are not mathematically eliminated from the points race, but they are realistically. It would take Ray missing the race and Brack and Schmidt finishing at the back of the pack for any of them to have a
chance.
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