Power clinches 63rd pole for Gateway night race

Will Power earned the top spot for Saturday night’s race from World Wide Technology Raceway, laying down a two-lap average of 180.618 MPH.

Power’s 63rd career pole comes on the heels of his first win of the season at Indianapolis last week, and means that the Australian now has at least one pole in every season since to 2009.

Starting on the outside of the front row will be Colton Herta, who revealed that he forgot to upshift at one point during his run, causing his Andretti Autosport Honda to hit the rev limiter and lose a bit of top speed.

Team Penske looked really strong during the session, with three of the first four positions being filled by the powerhouse team.  Newgarden and Pagenaud will represent Team Penske from the second row.

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Romain Grosjean, in his debut oval qualifying session, impressed his rivals and will start from the seventh row of the grid.

The Frenchman was promoted one position on account of Alex Palou’s engine penalty, which will put the points leader down in 20th position for the start of the race.

Scott Dixon did not qualify as high as expected after putting in a top-five effort in practice.  His two laps were simply off the pace, and the reigning series champion will start on row four.

Ed Carpenter Racing was uncharacteristically off the pace as well, with both Carpenter himself and Rinus VeeKay qualifying down in the final few positions.

Conor Daly, driving for Carlin this weekend, was another driver that was much further down the order than he was expecting.  The Hoosier will start Saturday night’s race from down in row 11.

The 1.25-mile oval was sizzling under the afternoon sun, and, much like practice earlier in the day, track temperatures remained high throughout the one-hour session.

There were gusty winds as well that pushed drivers into turn 1, but they did not seem to affect the cars very much, as they were running the high-downforce package.

The track will be significantly different come race time, however, as the sun will be setting just as the green flag is scheduled to fly.

Adding to the difficulty, this weekend’s race is an impound race, meaning that teams are not allowed to work on their cars or change any setups between qualifying and the race.

The Bommorito 500 is set to get under way in just a couple hours’ time, with the 260-lap event starting at 7:30PM Central Time.