Marco Andretti won his second career pole, first since 2008, yesterday and will be joined on the front row with Ryan Briscoe. Fourteen of the twenty-six drivers in the field will have to serve a ten grid spot penalty for engine changes. After all the penalties were enforced, Chevrolets take up the first eight positions with the drivers Tony Kanaan, JR Hildebrand, Ed Carpenter, Rubens Barrichello, Katherine Legge and Oriol Servia rounding out the top four rows. The defending champion, Dario Franchitti will be the highest starting Honda in ninth position.
Championship Leader Will Power will start thirteenth, while the main contender Ryan Hunter-Reay will roll off twenty-second. The surprise story of the weekend was Mike Conway announcing he would be stepping away from oval racing and was replaced by Wade Cunningham. Conway stated he was no longer comfortable on ovals and felt it would be better if someone else was in the car. Conway did not completely retire from racing and their is still the possibility of Conway racing on the road and street courses in 2013.
More news coming from the title fight was Ryan Hunter-Reay signing a two year extension to stay with Andretti Autosport. Reports came out at Baltimore that Penske was interested in signing the American. The forecast calls for temperatures near 100 tomorrow, but it should drop into the 80s by the end of the race. Coverage starts at 7:30pm ET on the NBC Sports Net with green flag around 8:50pm ET.
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