CHAMPCAR/CART: Qualifying rained out, Tagliani on pole

After heavy rains rolled through the Milwaukee area tonight, the first-ever night qualifying session at the Mile and for the Champ Cars was cancelled. The grid for Saturday night's Centennial 250 will be set by the lap times recorded during the three practice sessions on the historic oval over the weekend.

Alex Tagliani, with a blistering lap (20.882 seconds, 177.914 mph) in the third practice session, will start from the pole Saturday night. Most of the Champ Car drivers ran their best lap on the cool surface of the Thursday night, but the Rocketsports Racing driver was able to go a full second quicker this afternoon to move from fourth position to the top of the combined time chart.

Starting beside Tagliani on the front row, is Michel Jourdain, Jr, the fastest driver from the Thursday night session. In third position is Champ Car series points leader, Paul Tracy.

Tracy, who was fastest in the weekend's first practice session, brushed the wall on Thursday night, and was unable to challenge Team Rahal's Jourdain for the fast time while his Team Forsythe crew repaired the rear suspension of his car. His best time of that session before the wall contact was fast enough for second in the session and third on the grid.

It will be an all-Forsythe second row, with Tracy's Teammate, Patrick Carpentier starting alongside.

On the third row will be last year's Milwaukee polesitter Adrian Fernandez and Jimmy Vasser, and the next row is Oriol Servia and Bruno Junqueira.

The two rookie drivers running cars out of the Conquest Racing shops will fill in the top ten. Fittipaldi-Dingman Racing's Tiago Monteiro will start ninth and The Team Conquest driver Mario Haberfeld will have the tenth spot.

The Centennial 250 will get the green flag on Saturday night at 8pm central time with television coverage on SPEED Channel beginning at 8:30 pm EDT.