Sarah Fisher takes Kentucky pole.

Sarah Fisher made another piece of history on Saturday by becoming the first woman to take a pole position in the history of Indycar racing by collecting the MBNA pole Award for the Belterra Casino Indy 300 at Kentucky Speedway.

In what was a truly strange MBNA Pole session, Fisher and her Dreyer & Reinbold Racing team timed their qualifying run to perfection as she took top spot away from fellow Infiniti powered driver Billy Boat. Fisher's lap of 24.0661-seconds did not approach her best time from practice but was good enough to see off the 24 other competitiors.

With qualifying starting at 5:30pm local time and with the 1.5-mile track expected to pick up speed as the evening wore on, the original qualifying order soon became irrelevant as driver after driver waved off their qualifying runs and headed to the back of the line in the hoping of catching better track conditions.

Consequently those who bit the bullet and set a time early were left largely disappointed while those who waited, waived off an attempt and sacrificed one of their two flying laps, largely left satisfied.

Fisher, like Boat and second row starters Felipe Giaffone and Helio Castroneves, were amongst the last cars to make their final qualifying attempts but had to be mindful of the 75-minute cut off mark that would have seen all four start from the rear of the grid.

Under IRL regulations, as long as rain is not a factor, all cars must qualifying within 75-minutes of the start of the session or face starting from the back. Thankfully everyone made an attempt and if the stands weren't sold out beforehand for Sunday's race, they certainly will be now.

Boat, who won an equally emotional pole position in Nashville last month, wasn't too disheartened with having to give best to the 21-year old lady racer as his CURB/Agajanian/Boat Racing team continued to show some sparkling form despite their comparatively meagre resources.

The eyes of the Championship battle will be focused on the second row of the grid on Sunday with the metronomic Felipe Giaffone and mid-season points leader Helio Castroneves starting this and fourth respectively. Sam Hornish Jr will be right behind them in fifth spot after an engine change in his Panther Racing Dallara-Chevrolet while Red Bull Cheever Racing teammates Buddy Rice and Eddie Cheever add extra spice to the mix in sixth and seventh places respectively.

Both Rice and Cheever, like Hornish, Michigan winner Tomas Scheckter and opening practice leader Tony Renna, may well have found themselves much further up the starting order had they qualified later in the evening. As it stands however Renna could only manage 12th fastest time and Scheckter a miserable 17th.

Double Kentucky winner Buddy Lazier also left qualifying a disappointed man after setting only ninth fastest time behind the emerging Richie Hearn/Sam Schmidt Motorsports combination while Gil de Ferran, as expected, quietly went about his business and settled in tenth overall.

Vitor Meira will start 13th on his IRL debut for Team Menard with Al Unser Jr 14th and Will Langhorne 19th.