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| Photo Credit: Chris Jones |
In 2010, the state of Wisconsin's motorsport options were limited as the Milwaukee Mile was unable to host their traditional major stock car and open wheel races due to financial difficulties. While the NASCAR Nationwide series has relocated to nearby Elkhart Lake's Road America, the IZOD INDYCAR series waited for the previous promoter issue to be resolved. Added back to the schedule for 2011, fans of the one-mile event (which often presided the week after the Indianapolis 500) rejoiced as open wheel racing returned after a 2010 season absence.
Ending a horrible chapter for the fairgrounds that hosted auto racing since 1903, the IZOD INDYCAR series are back to the outskirts of Milwaukee to compete at the 1-mile oval in West Allis. Readying for a Sunday afternoon event, qualifying for The Milwaukee Mile 225 will have Target/Chip Ganassi Racing's Dario Franchitti starting at the front. Recording a two-lap average lap time 42.7766 seconds, Franchitti's average speed of 170.841 miles per hour was 2.5 miles per hour faster than Ryan Briscoe's 2009 pole run.
Alongside Dario Franchitti, the Target/Chip Ganassi Racing driver will have Helio Castroneves representing the initial best starting of top rival Penske Racing. The #9 car of Scott Dixon will be immediately following teammate Franchitti to the green flag. From 4th to 6th place will have the team cars of KV Racing Technology launching a best chance for the team to spoil as a victor. The #82 of Tony Kanaan leads over Takuma Sato and EJ Viso.
While fast in practice, Penske Racing's Will Power struggled in qualifying Saturday afternoon. Following his first oval win at Texas Motor Speedway, Power's circle track luck took a turn with only a 17th fastest time after losing traction for just an instant on track. "We were flat through turns one and two but we had a big moment there in turn three when we got loose that cost us."
With a 26-car field set to compete for The Milwaukee Mile 225, the HVM Racing team could be questionable for the race Sunday as driver Simona de Silvestro crashed on her warm-up lap in qualifying. Conscious after the accident, de Silvestro was taken off-site for further medical examination.
The Milwaukee 225 will start Sunday at 3:30pm.
Starting Grid
Milwaukee Mile
The Milwaukee Mile 225
Pos # | Car # | Driver/ Nationality/ Team
- 10 Dario Franchitti/Scotland/ Target/Chip Ganassi Racing
- 3 Helio Castroneves/Brazil/ Penske Racing
- 9 Scott Dixon/New Zealand/ Target/Chip Ganassi Racing
- 82 Tony Kanaan/Brazil/ KV Racing Technology
- 5 Takuma Sato/Japan/ KV Racing Technology
- 58 EJ Viso/Venezuela/ KV Racing Technology
- 28 Ryan Hunter-Reay/United States/Andretti Autosport
- 6 Ryan Briscoe/Australia/ Penske Racing
- 26 Marco Andretti/United States/ Andretti Autosport
- 2 Oriol Servia/Spanish/ Newman/Haas Racing
- 24 Ana Beatriz/Brazil/ Dreyer & Reinbold
- 38 Graham Rahal/United States/Chip Ganassi Racing
- 22 Justin Wilson/England/ Dreyer & Reinbold Racing
- 19 Alex Lloyd/England/Dale Coyne Racing
- 7 Danica Patrick/United States/ Andretti Autosport
- 06 James Hinchcliffe/Canada/ Newman/Haas Racing
- 12 Will Power/Australia/ Penske Racing
- 4 JR Hildebrand/United States/ Panther Racing
- 77 Alex Tagliani/Canada/ Sam Schmidt Racing
- 27 Mike Conway/England/Andretti Autosport
- 83 Charlie Kimball/United States/ Chip Ganassi Racing
- 14 Vitor Meira/Brazil/ AJ Foyt Racing Enterprises
- 18 James Jakes/England/ Dale Coyne Racing
- 34 Sebastian Saavedra/Columbia/ Conquest Racing
- 67 Ed Carpenter/United States/Sarah Fisher Racing
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