Record falls to Tracy at Michigan.

Paul Tracy is not a known qualifying specialist. The Canadian's last pole came at Milwaukee back in 1997 and the Team KOOL Green driver has since built himself a reputation as being a better racer than qualifier. Witness the fighting drives at Long Beach and Toronto this year as examples of his superb race-craft skills. However if practice and qualifying at Michigan are anything to go by, Tracy won't be needed to pass anyone on Sunday.

Fastest on Friday with an average speed of 236mph, Tracy astounded the Champ Car fraternity by recording a lap on Saturday morning at an average speed of over 238mph, two mph shy of Mauricio Gugelmin's closed circuit speed record of 240mph, set three years ago at Fontana. However all times recorded in practice were declared unofficial, thus giving Tracy only his two timed qualifying laps to break Jimmy Vasser's 1996 track record.

With drivers going out one at a time in reverse order from practice, the major players had an agonisingly long wait before they could get on track. The wait was made even longer when proceedings were held up after Takuya Kurosawa hit the wall and had to be taken to a local hospital. The Dale Coyne driver lost control of his Lola as he prepared to start his qualifying lap and was briefly knocked unconscious, ruling him out of Sunday's race.

Of the first ten drivers to take to the circuit Patrick Carpentier was the quickest, the Forsythe driver setting a fastest time of 31.036 seconds to lead Adrian Fernandez by just over a tenth.

The 1998 Michigan 500 winner and his Patrick team-mate Roberto Moreno were both struggling to get the exact balance of their cars correct at this, the most crucial track of all. The points leader ended the day four places lower than his Mexican team-mate in 16th.

Carpentier's mark stayed as the time to beat for much longer than even he expected until his team-mate Alex Tagliani finally demoted him with a lap of 30.990 seconds. Tagliani was in turn pushed down the order by Jimmy Vasser, whose time withstood challenges from Cristiano Da Matta, Mark Blundell and Max Papis before Gil De Ferran claimed top spot.

With no opportunity to draft other cars, speeds were never going to approach practice times and Vasser's 1996 track record, set before CART began restricting the amount of downforce the cars are allowed to use on Superspeedways, looked as though it could survive for another year.

De Ferran's mark of 30.904 represented an improvement over his Friday practice time to the tune of six hundredths of a second. The Team Penske driver was happy with his car and felt that it would react well in traffic.

Juan Montoya eked out every last ounce of power out of his Lola-Toyota, the Colombian adding in disgruntled fashion, "That was all we could get out of it." Montoya's Toyota engine was the class of the field on the shorter one/one and a half mile ovals that the Fed-Ex Series visited earlier in the year although it seemed to struggle slightly on sheer power when compared to its rivals from Ford and Honda, who powered the top five qualifiers. Montoya's best lap of 30.963 seconds was good enough for seventh place, directly behind his Chip Ganassi team-mate Vasser.

Christian Fittipaldi then stunned onlookers with a highly impressive 30.739 second effort, pushing Dario Franchitti down to second with just three runners to go. Fittipaldi's form had been inconsistent throughout practice and despite being right on the pace on Friday, dropped to 14th on Saturday morning only to come within a whisker of the track record in qualifying.

After the lap Fittipaldi felt that his decision to focus a lot on full tank running would pay off on Sunday. "I have a very good racecar," said the Brazilian.

Toronto pole sitter Helio Castroneves' challenge turned sour along with his engine as the Team Penske driver geared himself up for his first flying lap. The Brazilian was able to peel back into the pits without coating the circuit with oil and water and would have to wait until the end of the session before he could take his spare machine out for a run. The spare was not set-up as well as his race car and Helio could do no better than 13th. And then there were two.

Michael Andretti has looked dangerous all weekend, the Newman-Haas driver being one of three men to break the 238mph barrier in the morning session. Fresh from his 40th career win, Andretti was quickly up to speed and looked smooth through the first turn, staying low and not fighting the wheel as the car blasted out onto the back straight. He stayed 100% committed for both laps and the end result was a fantastic 30.687 seconds, just 15 hundredths of a second slower than the lap record.

It all came down to Tracy, the Canadian took to the track as the crowd looked on in anticipation, knowing what the car was capable of. Coming out of the final turn on his first flying lap Tracy ran slightly wide and made some anti-sway bar changes as he shot across the line for his final flying lap. Preferring to use the high groove, the changes worked and Tracy came across the line in 30.645 seconds, pole position and a new track record.

"I have to thank all the guys at Team Green," said an ebullient Tracy after his record run. "They worked really hard over the winter in the wind tunnel. It is really very satisfying."

Fittipaldi was demoted to third amongst the hysteria at the end of qualifying alongside Franchitti while De Ferran rounds out the top five.

Behind the two Target Chip Ganassi cars and the two Player's Forsythe machines, Kenny Brack rounds out the top ten, just ahead of his Rahal team-mate Papis. Fernandez, Castroneves, Da Matta and Oriol Servia complete the top 15 with only Servia being remotely happy with his performance.

Grid positions are largely irrelevant in a 500 mile race, especially at Michigan where overtaking is rife. Last year there were 29 lead changes although both Andretti and Tracy have both stated that passing will be much more difficult this year than on previous occasions.

The two Newman-Haas drivers have opted to use the HANS support system which will help support their necks in the event of an accident.

With Tracy dominating practice in such a decisive manner, he will start the event as a red hot favourite although both Andretti, Fittipaldi and Franchitti are all in with a shout. In fact, with the CART series producing twist after twist after twist, three quarters of the field have the potential to scoop the honours on Sunday.