IRL: Texas' last five races

After posting three consecutive top-fives from St. Petersburg through Kansas Speedway, Tony Kanaan has had two horrible weekends in the Indy Racing League with finishes in the 20s in the Indy 500 and at the Milwaukee Mile. Last week, he entered the flat one-mile oval with a near perfect record on that track during the last five years before crashing barely 12 races into the event. Now, he has another chance to rebound. At Texas Motor Speedway, he's finished seventh or better in his last five tries.

Helio Castroneves has actually been stronger in recent seasons. Except for a crash in 2007, he would have swept the top five since the fall 2004 race, having won twice and posting a second-place finish.

Dan Wheldon posted the fastest time in Friday's session and he too has to be considered a serious contender this week. Like Castroneves, he had a bad 2007 race, but has finished sixth or better four of his last five attempts.

Average finish, last five races

Driver	Avg. Fin	2008	2007	2006	2005	2004.2
Tony Kanaan	3.8	5	2	7	3	2
Helio Castroneves	5.0	2	16	1	5	1
Adrian Fernandez	5.0					5
Hideki Mutoh	6.0	6
Sam Hornish Jr	6.0		1	4	2	17
Scott Sharp	6.0		7	5	4	8
Dan Wheldon	6.2	4	15	3	6	3
Vitor Meira	6.2	7	5	6	9	4
Scott Dixon	6.4	1	12	2	11	6
Mark Taylor	7.0					7
Ryan Briscoe	7.5	3			12
Townsend Bell	9.0					9
Danica Patrick	9.5	10	3	12	13
Dario Franchitti	10.0		4	13	8	15
Sarah Fisher	10.0		10
Jeff Simmons	10.5		6	15
Kosuke Matsuura	10.8		9	8	7	19
Graham Rahal	11.0	11
Tora Takagi	12.0					12
Bryan Herta	12.3			11	10	16
Will Power	13.0	13
Felipe Giaffone	13.5			16		11
Tomas Scheckter	13.6	25	14	10	1	18
E J Viso	14.0	14
Milka Duno	14.0	17	11
Alex Barron	14.0				14	14
Anthony Foyt IV	14.3	12	17		18	10
Buddy Rice	15.0	8	8	18	21	20
Bruno Junqueira	15.0	15
Roger Yasukawa	15.0				15
Ed Carpenter	15.4	9	18	9	20	21
John Andretti	16.0	16
Patrick Carpentier	16.0				16
Tomas Enge	16.0				19	13
Eddie Cheever Jr	17.0			17
Marco Andretti	17.3	19	19	14
Mario Moraes	18.0	18
Buddy Lazier	19.0			19
Darren Manning	19.3	28	13		17
Ryan Hunter-Reay	20.0	20
Jon Herb	20.0		20
Mario Dominguez	21.0	21
Marty Roth	22.0	22
Jimmy Kite	22.0				22
Enrique Bernoldi	23.0	23
Jaime Camara	24.0	24
Oriol Servia	26.0	26
Justin Wilson	27.0	27