Ed Carpenter Wins Pole at Kentucky Speedway

SPARTA, Kentucky – In a surprising twist, part-time IndyCar driver Ed Carpenter has won the pole at Kentucky Speedway with a two-lap average of 217.933 (mph).

"I love this track and this area. I won one of my national midget races in Louisville and won a lot of sprint car races in Salem, Ind. The southern Indiana/Kentucky region seems to be good to me for some reason," said Fisher.

He continued, "The way I kind of look at it, I'm trying to keep my career going so every minute I'm in the car. I have to do the best I can and get the most out of it. I'm just having a lot of fun right now; the Panther team is doing a great job in addition with the Vision Racing part of it. It's just a lot of fun."

During Friday morning’s early practice session, Carpenter was thirteenth fastest.

Carpenter is driving the No. 20 Fuzzy's Ultra Premium Vodka car for Panther/Vision Racing during tomorrow night’s Kentucky Indy 300. His race strategist will be Tony George.

This is Carpenter’s first career pole win.

Carpenter's teammate Dan Wheldon starts third; in between the two is overall series championship leader Will Power. Power's chief competitor for the series championship, Dario Franchitti, starts in eleventh position.

Bertrand Baguette and Tomas Scheckter also had notable qualifying runs starting at P6 and P10, respectively.

Robyn Lynne Schechter