IRL: Nashville: Scott Sharp qualifying report

Sharp on Row Four for Firestone Indy 200

Scott Sharp will make his sixth career start at Nashville Superspeedway from the eighth position on the grid after qualifying this afternoon for Saturday night's Firestone Indy 200. The result ties his career-best starting position on the 1.33-mile oval of eighth last year. Sharp, who was 11th-fastest overall following 90 minutes of scheduled practice time, posted his best lap of the day during qualifying which took place under extremely hot conditions with temperatures hovering near 98 F. The entire 18-car field is covered by half-a-second.

Sharp claimed his career-best result at Nashville Superspeedway in last year's race, finishing fourth. He is seventh in the championship standings entering tomorrow's 200-lap event.

Scott Sharp - #8 Delphi Dallara/Honda/Firestone:

"It was a good qualifying run for the Delphi Fernandez team. We hoped to catch a few guys and get a little more speed out of the car, and we accomplished both of those things. We lost a lot of time in the first practice session with a problem on the car. We chose to continue to work in a direction more towards the race than qualifying in the second practice session. The car wasn't really setup for qualifying so we knew we were giving away a little bit there, but what's important is when you get to the 30, 40, 50, 60-lap mark in the race. Hopefully, our consistency is really going to help us out tomorrow night."

-www.fernandezracing.net