KENTUCKY SPEEDWAY Hornish wins pole to lead closest starting field by time ever in IRL

The 20-car field is separated by a mere 0.5367 seconds.
SPARTA, Ky. (AP) -- Sam Hornish Jr. won his third career pole and first of the season Saturday during qualifying for the Indy Racing League event at Kentucky Speedway.
Hornish drove a lap of 219.614 mph for the Belterra Casino Indy 300 to lead the closest starting field by time in IRL history.
The 20-car field is separated by 0.5367 seconds. The previous closest field was in 1999 in Atlanta, when a 25-car field was separated by 0.62 seconds.
First for Chevrolet
Hornish's pole was the first of 2003 for an IRL driver with a Chevrolet engine. The Pennzoil Panther Racing driver's previous best qualifying effort this year was third, at both Homestead-Miami Speedway and Richmond International Raceway.
He won the two previous races in which he took the pole, at Chicagoland Speedway and Homestead-Miami in 2002.
Hornish's qualifying run was a bit of a surprise because the 24-year-old driver from Defiance, Ohio, had only the 15th-fastest lap time during Saturday's practice runs.
"I think we had a better race car than we did a qualifying car," Hornish said. "We'll see what happens [today]. Chevrolet really went out on a limb and did what they had to do to be able to put us up here and be able to be fast."
Dixon in front row
Scott Dixon, with a Toyota engine, ran a qualifying lap of 219.358 mph to earn a spot on the outside of the front row.
"I had a very good run," Dixon said. "The car was perfectly balanced for the first lap and very loose on the second lap. I had to get out of it because I nearly lost it. I think we got as much as we could out of the car."
Vitor Meira had the third-fastest practice run, but crashed into the outside retaining wall in the second turn and fractured his right wrist, said IRL medical services director Henry Bock.
Meira, who drives for Johns Manville, did not try to qualify his car and was not medically cleared to drive today.