RAHAL ON PRIMARYS

The first pole position of Graham Rahal's IndyCar career was a little more impressive because his fast lap was on the primary Firestone tires -- not the softer red alternates. "The alternates were consistently faster today, probably a good four to five-tenths of a second without a problem, maybe a little more if you pushed it," said the 20-year-old second generation star who won this race in his debut a year ago.

Graham Rahal made his way to pole not on the special 'Reds,' but on the standard Firestone tires. (LAT)

"So I think we did a pretty good job on our primaries to get the pole because I know there were some guys out there in the Fast Six on alternates so we didn't know what to expect but it worked out. "But I think it shows how good our car is."

Rahal edged former teammate Justin Wilson by five-thusandths of a second (1:02.411 to 1:02.460) despite tagging the wall exiting the last corner."Thankfully, I didn't hurt anything or it didn't slow me down."

Bridgestone introduced the two tire compounds back in 2006-2007 in Champ Car and it resulted in lots of passing and strategies on the street courses. But there didn't seem to be much difference between the primary and alternates and Firestone says it was by design. "We were very conservative because it's our first time with alternates in the IRL but I think you'll see a much bigger difference in a couple weeks at Long Beach," said Firestone's Al Speyer.

Rahal, who plans to start Sunday's race on reds, doesn't think it's going to make much difference. "I really don't think the tire degradation, reds vs. blacks, is going to be a problem tomorrow," he said. "I think they're both pretty consistent."

NOTES, QUOTES, ANTEDOTES

Dreyer & Reinbold are in the process of trying to bring back Milka Duno to run the 10 ovals while keeping Manning for the remaining six road races. Duno tested with Newman/Haas/Lanigan at Homestead in February and was attempting to put a deal together to run alongside Robert Doornbos and Rahal but, according to his friends, Carl Haas just decided he didn't want to run her -- at any price.......

Scott Dixon's tires "Were consistent..." in qualifying, the Kiwi said with a touch of sarcasm. (LAT)

Dixon after qualifying eighth: "We were consistent -- consistently slow." ......

Other than Tony Kanaan, who qualified third, it was a miserable day for Andretti-Green -- especially Marco Andretti, who wound up 18th out of 22 and a half second slower than Danica Patrick (15th). Hidecki Mutoh lines up 19th in the fourth car.......

Rahal became the youngest ever pole winner at 20 years, 90 days (Marco had been the youngest at 21 years, 79 days when he edged Rahal for the pole last year at Milwaukee).......

Oriol Servia and Bruno Junqueira were pounding the pavement, hoping for a ride to open up at least by May. "I'm not giving up," said Servia, who was the most consistent performer of the ex-Champ Car teams a yearo ago for KV Racing. "Bruno and I can both run up front, we just an opportunity."....