» IndyCars: Dixon on pole for Iowa race

Defending IndyCar Series champion Scott Dixon has finally had some luck fall his way after claiming pole position for Saturday’s championship round at the 0.875-mile Iowa Speedway.

With just a single podium finish to-date, the New Zealander has had a rather torrid title defence and will be hoping that he can reinvigorate his championship campaign with a solid race result around the short oval circuit.

After the Penske entries of Will Power and Juan Pablo Montoya had locked out top spots in preceding practice sessions, Dixon unearthed a two-lap qualifying average speed of 186.256mph (299.75km/h) to break the circuit’s qualifying record. Chip Ganassi teammate Tony Kanaan will start alongside him on the front row.

Former champion Hélio Castroneves starts on the second row of the grid. The improving Ryan Briscoe qualified fourth, and with Charlie Kimball seventh-fastest, all four Chip Ganassi entries qualified on the first four rows of the grid. The Andretti entries of Carlos Muñoz and Marco Andretti qualified inside the top-eight, with Sébastien Bourdais an impressive sixth-fastest.

Series leader Will Power was the first runner on track and clocked a two-lap average of 184.683mph (297.22km/h), but he ultimately slide down the timesheets to ninth. Montoya, a winner last weekend at Pocono Raceway, was a lowly nineteenth and will have plenty of work to do to get himself towards the sharp end of the field in the 300-lap race.

Saturday’s race gets underway at 7:50pm local time (UTC -5:00).

2014 IndyCar Series Iowa Corn 300 – Final Qualifying:

	Driver	Team / Entry	Avg. Speed
1.	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet	186.256mph
2.	Tony Kanaan	Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet	185.891mph
3.	Hélio Castroneves	Team Penske Chevrolet	185.685mph
4.	Ryan Briscoe	Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet	185.339mph
5.	Carlos Muñoz	Andretti Autosport Honda	185.027mph
6.	Sébastien Bourdais	KV Racing Technology Honda	184.968mph
7.	Charlie Kimball	Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet	184.743mph
8.	Marco Andretti	Andretti Autosport Honda	184.726mph
9.	Will Power	Team Penske Chevrolet	184.683mph
10.	Ed Carpenter	Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet	184.589mph
11.	Simon Pagenaud	Schmidt Peterson Hamilton Motorsports Honda	184.380mph
12.	Mikhail Aleshin	Schmidt Peterson Hamilton Motorsports Honda	184.316mph
13.	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport Honda	183.747mph
14.	James Hinchcliffe	Andretti Autosport Honda	183.348mph
15.	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda	183.201mph
16.	Takuma Sato	A.J. Foyt Enterprises Honda	183.089mph
17.	Sebastián Saavedra	KV Racing Technology / AFS Racing Honda	183.083mph
18.	Justin Wilson	Dale Coyne Racing Honda	182.455mph
19.	Juan Pablo Montoya	Team Penske Chevrolet	182.317mph
20.	Jack Hawksworth	Bryan Herta Autosport Honda	181.243mph
21.	Josef Newgarden	Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing Honda	180.987mph
22.	Carlos Huertas	Dale Coyne Racing Honda	177.849mph