Hornish Top Chevy in Kansas Qualifying

Hornish Sizzles in Kansas Speedway Qualifying with Third Front-Row Start
of Season

KANSAS CITY, Kan., July 6, 2002 -- Sam Hornish Jr. had the hot hand
for Chevrolet today in qualifying for Sunday's Ameristar Casino Indy 200.
In hot and humid conditions at Kansas Speedway, Hornish was the top Chevy
qualifier with Panther Racing's Pennzoil Dallara, capturing the outside
front row starting spot with a 217.743 mph lap on the 1.5-mile speedway.
Tomas Scheckter edged Hornish for the pole with a 218.547 mph run in his
Infiniti-powered entry.

"That lap was actually better than we thought we could run," said Hornish,
who was one of seven drivers who eclipsed the track record set by Scott
Sharp last year at 216.175 mph. "After we saw how much some of the other
cars slowed down today, we weren't sure whether we could run that fast.
Chevrolet and Firestone have been working well with us to give us good
engines and good tires. I'm very confident going into this tough part of
the season where we're racing almost every weekend. The team is giving me
good equipment, so as long as the driver keeps the car off the wall, we'll
be OK.

"We started with the setup we used last year in Chicago, and it didn't
work that well for us," Hornish reported. "Andy Brown (team engineer) has
been working hard to figure out a setup for the race. Right now the track
has a lot of rubber from the NASCAR truck race on it, and it's a little
slick. We'll see where we stand tomorrow after the warm-up."

Chevrolet and Infiniti split the top 10 with five cars each. Buddy Lazier
was the second fastest Chevy driver at 216.328 mph in Hemelgarn Racing's
Dallara and will start on the inside of the third row.

"It was a pretty good run but the car was loose," said Lazier. "It was a
good effort, but with a few slight changes we could have made a run for the
pole. It felt very good, and we have a good race car.

"The race track is going to be slippery," Lazier predicted. "With the
new surface last year we had a lot of grip, but this year there is a lot
less grip. It's going to be a handling track, not a horsepower track."

Airton Dare qualified A.J. Foyt's Chevrolet Dallara sixth on the grid
at 216.285 mph, his best qualifying performance of the season.

"We tried not to mess ourselves up in practice by running in the draft,"
Dare explained. "That's about the speed we expected. The temperature got
hotter since practice, so we lost a little with the heat. When it gets hot
the car usually pushes a little more, so the Harrah's team did a great job
for me adjusting for the conditions. For the race it will be different --
you're going to need more grip to go flat-out all the way around. You need
power, but you also need the car to handle."

Richie Hearn made a strong qualifying run with Sam Schmidt
Motorsports' Chevrolet Dallara after posting several fast times in
practice. He qualified ninth at 215.694 mph.

"The track temperature is 20 degree hotter than we've ever run so it was a
bit of a guess on how much downforce to run," Hearn revealed. "We probably
should have run a little more in front because the wind was pushing the car
up the track and scrubbing off speed. We'll have a good car tomorrow.

"It means a lot for this team to run up front," Hearn added. "We need
some strong runs to show what we can do next year."

Penske Racing teammates Gil de Ferran and Helio Castroneves struggled
in qualifying, placing 21st and seventh respectively in the 23-car field.

"We don't know what happened," said de Ferran, the IRL points leader, after
he qualified at 211.714 mph. "We went out with a car that could run 216 mph
this morning. I almost crashed in turn 4 on my opening lap, the car
just understeered off the road. On the second lap, the same thing happened
and I had to get off the throttle big time. The car was great this morning,
but had an unbelievable amount of push in turn 4."

The Ameristar Casino Indy 200 will start at 1 p.m. EDT (noon local time)
on Sunday, July 7. The 300-mile, 200-lap race will be televised live on ABC
and broadcast live on the IMS Radio Network.

TOP TEN QUALIFIERS
Pos./Driver/Engine/Speed
1. Tomas Scheckter, Infiniti, 218.547 mph
2. Sam Hornish Jr., Chevrolet, 217.743
3. Eddie Cheever Jr., Infiniti, 217.649
4. Laurent Redon, Infiniti, 217.526
5. Buddy Lazier, Chevrolet, 216.328
6. Airton Dare, Chevrolet, 216.285
7. Helio Castroneves, Chevrolet, 216.228
8. Billy Boat, Infiniti, 216.118
9. Richie Hearn, Chevrolet, 215.694
10. Mark Dismore, Chevrolet, 215.464