Dixon, who lost last year's IRL IndyCar Series championship to Dario Franchitti when he ran out of fuel on the last turn of the last lap of the season, got off to a good start Friday at Homestead-Miami Speedway, winning the first Indy-style qualifying outside of the Indianapolis 500.
Over the winter, the IRL announced that it would adopt the unique four-lap qualifying format used at Indy for all of its oval races in 2008. Dixon took advantage with a four-lap average of 213.341 mph in his Target Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara, earning his ninth career pole.
Ed Carpenter, the last of 25 drivers in the evening qualifying session, came close to knocking off the New Zealander and winning his first pole with an average of 213.311.
His speed after three laps was faster than Dixon's, but Carpenter, the stepson of IRL founder and Vision Racing team owner Tony George, slowed just enough on his final trip around the 1.5-mile oval to finish 0.0141 seconds slower than Dixon's cumulative, four-lap time of 1:40.2341.
"The new qualifying format and the four-lap average makes it very difficult to make the car good and fast for four straight laps," the disappointed Carpenter said. "It's something we've been kind of fighting with the car fading a little bit. It was starting to pick up some understeer and I was trying to keep up with my adjustments in the cockpit and I just need a little bit.
"It was close. With this format, with the four-lap average, I think you're going to see it's not going to be the same guys starting up front every week because it's very challenging. But this isn't supposed to be easy. It's supposed to be hard, and that's what's fun about the format."
After 2 1/2 hours of practice Friday without any wrecks, there were two crashes during qualifying.
One of them involved Dan Wheldon, Dixon's teammate and the winner of the last three Homestead races. Wheldon's team planned to repair the car and the Englishman will have to start from the rear of the field in Saturday night's season-opening Gainsco Indy 300.
The eight former Champ Car World Series teams entered all qualified toward the bottom of the grid, but Wheldon will be behind all of them
- several of the newcomers making their first start on an oval.
"It's a long race," Wheldon said after emerging from the mandatory checkup at the infield hospital. "We'll just have to try to be real patient and try to stay out of trouble until we can get where we need to be."
