Rice, Meira seeking Nashville revenge.

Last year, Buddy Rice and Vitor Meira qualified one-two for the Firestone Indy 200 marking Rahal Letterman Racing's first front row qualifying sweep in the IRL IndyCar Series.

That dominance carried over to the race when the green flag dropped, as the RLR duo led the first 165 laps between them. Only a length pit stop for Meira and a late race collision for Rice spoiled a Rahal Letterman victory lane celebration at Nashville in 2004.

Meira, who is still seeking his initial IRL victory, took the lead at the start and held the point for the first 113 laps but dropped to 15th due to a long pit stop. The popular Brazilian then put on one of the most spectacular drives of the 2004 season when he took his #17 Panoz-Honda into the top five within three laps. Unfortunately, Meira's charge was derailed late in the race when he battled gearbox troubles and finished 12th

"I feel that we had the car to win last year at Nashville," said Meira, currently sixth in IndyCar points. "Buddy and I seemed to be the fastest in the field, but problems kept us from the winner's circle. I can't wait to get back to Nashville and show that kind of speed again. This is a tough series and the competition will be very tough, but I feel we'll have a good chance to win this time."

Rice, the 2004 Indy 500 champion, picked up the pace after Meira's pit stop problem last year at Nashville and held a seven-second advantage late in the 200-lap race. Rice, who dominated the contest for 52 laps, led before a late race caution period forced the leaders into the pits for the final time. Rice's crew made a routine fuel and four-tyre stop while Dan Wheldon took on fuel only.

On the restart on lap 166, Wheldon led Rice into the first turn. Rice dove underneath Wheldon for the pass for the lead but the two cars collided. The collision broke Rice's car front wing and he was forced to return to the pits for repairs.

Rice, who posted one of his five 2004 pole positions at Nashville, came back from 13th to sixth, but ran out of time for a charge to the front.

"I think Vitor and I had the strongest cars, but the best cars don't always win," said Rice, a three-time winner in 2004. "I believe we are certainly due for a break and hopefully a win at Nashville after last year's race. We led for 165 laps and came out of there with a sixth and 12th place cars. Not what we wanted that night.

"I really like to race at night at Nashville and we should be right in the hunt again. The concrete surface is different from what we normally race on and the team has to carefully watch the conditions on a track like that one. But we feel good about coming back to Nashville. If we have all of our ducks in row, the Rahal Letterman team should be at the front of the field night. We had the top three qualifying spots at Kansas last week and I can easily see us doing that again."