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©1998 SpeedCenter Internet Publishing, Inc. By Peter Burke Just four minutes into the second session of Saturday's qualifying at Portland Intl. Raceway, Bryan Herta set the fastest time of the event, breaking the track record with a 58.358 second run (121.341 mph). Dario Franchitti, yesterday's provisional pole sitter managed to better his time, but came up 0.089 seconds short. Franchitti won a pole earlier this year at Rio. With a victory tomorrow, Herta can establish a new single Marlboro Pole Award recordof $250,000. Combined with the prize money for the event win, Herta could win apossible record purse for a CART race on a road course. Scott Pruett and Jimmy Vasser will make up the second row of the starting grid, both about 0.3 seconds behind pole sitter Herta. Points leader Alex Zanardi moved from 18th position on Friday to 5th on Saturday, after crashing his primary car in the morning practice session. Zanardi's closest competitor in the points chase, Greg Moore, dropped from 5th on Friday to 14th after running off the course early in the session today and struggling with the changed track conditions since the morning practice. Paul Tracy was forced to sit out today's qualifying session as part of the penalty for his accident with Michel Jourdain Jr. on Friday. His 59.630 second lap from Friday was still good enough for the 20th position on the starting grid. 1997 Portland winner Mark Blundell will start the race from the 16th grid position. His Saturday qualifying session was cut short by a technical problem that kept his car in pit lane for much of the session. Source: CART News Service | ||
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