[caption id="attachment_45841" align="alignleft" width="241"] Helio Castroneves of Brazil holds the trophy after winning the pole for IndyCar Phoenix Grand Prix auto race at Phoenix International Raceway in Avondale, Arizona Friday. — AP[/caption] LOS ANGELES — Brazil's Helio Castroneves set a track lap record en route to winning pole position Friday for the IndyCar Phoenix Grand Prix. Castroneves posted a two-lap average speed of 192.324 mph (309.52 Km/h) in his Team Penske Chevrolet to top the qualifying times. His first lap of 19.0997 seconds (192.631 mph, 310.01 Km/h) was the sixth and final lap of the day that improved on the track record set 20 years ago by Dutchman Arie Luyendyk. Brazilian Tony Kanaan was second-fastest in a Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet, with a two-lap average of 191.511 mph. Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya, will start third after qualifying at 191.366 mph. Charlie Kimball qualified fourth, Ed Carpenter fifth and Scott Dixon sixth. None of the top six drivers is under 30. "The old guys are out front. You guys can call us whatever you want, but as long as we keep winning," Kanaan said. "That's (experience) going to count a lot." PIR has been reconfigured since Sam Hornish, Jr. won the last race in the desert in 2005, but the speeds were fast for a short track regardless of the routing. Of the 22 cars in the field, 16 turned a lap faster than Arie Luyendyk's 20-year-old track record during the first practice session. The pole position is the 46th of Castroneves' career, fourth most in IndyCar history. It is his second top qualifying performance at Phoenix, which last hosted open-wheel racing in 2005. The 1.022-mile oval in the Arizona desert was a victim of the feud between Indy and the old Champ Car series, with only a few thousand fans turning up in 2005. Japan's Takuma Sato and Canadian James Hinchcliffe both were unable to qualify as their cars continued undergoing repairs following separate crashes in morning practice. Both lost control of their cars entering turn one and spun back first into the barrier between turns one and two. Neither was seriously hurt, but their teams couldn't get their cars ready for qualifying and they will start Saturday night's race at the back of the grid. Andretti Autosport's Carlos Munoz of Colombia became the third driver of the weekend to hit the wall in nearly the same fashion, on his second qualifying lap. Munoz was helped from his car and taken by stretcher for medical evaluation, but was later cleared to race.
