IRL: Texas: Scott Sharp qualifying report

Sharp Qualifies Seventh in Texas

Scott Sharp will be challenging for his third career win at Texas Motor Speedway from Row Four of the grid after qualifying seventh for the Bombardier Learjet 500 this evening. Sharp, who was ninth-fastest overall at the conclusion of two practice sessions earlier in the day, is preparing for his 16 th IndyCar Series career start on the 1.5-mile oval. His pair of wins came in 2000 and 2001, and Sharp claimed his sixth top-five finish last year with a fourth-place run.

Final practice will take place tomorrow evening, with Saturday's 200-lap feature -- the first night race of the 2006 season -- scheduled for 8:15 pm CT.

Scott Sharp - #8 Delphi Dallara /Honda/Firestone:
"It was a good day for the team. I am really happy with the moves that JD [John Dick, race engineer] and the crew made. We came out of the box pretty strong and made a lot of great adjustments to get the car to handle better and better. We worked a little bit on the race setup the first session, and focused more on qualifying the second. It's two different setups here. What it takes to go fast on your own in qualifying is so different than what you need when you are in the big pack behind guys. I think we are really going to be good in that position. We are starting in a great spot. The guys we want to beat are right in front of us, so I'm excited. We have had some growing pains in trying to get our hands around the Dallara with the very limited amount of testing the league gives you now. It is so hard to do that, but we are going to races that I really love and races where the team has performed really well. I am excited to jumpstart our season right now. We are just a few points out of a good spot in the points and it's time to pick it up. I think we can get ourselves back into a solid championship point race."

-www.delphifernandezracing.net