IRL: Texas lineup with avg. start/finish

Dario Franchitti won the pole for Saturday night's Bombardier Learjet 550k—his fifth top-10 start on this track in six attempts. His results have been irregular after starting that close to the front, but the other time he started from the pole in 2004, he finished second.

Ryan Briscoe rolls off the grid second, and if his personal history at Texas is an indication that is precisely where he will finish. In 2005, he started and finished 12th in this race. Last year, he finished third after starting on the inside of the second row.

Like Briscoe, Scott Dixon does a good job of finishing what he starts at Texas. His first attempt there came in spring 2003 when he started second and finished sixth. In fall 2003, he started and finished second. In fall 2004, he started fifth and finished sixth. He went from fourth to second in 2006 and last year he won from the pole. He starts third on Saturday.

The king of Texas qualifying, however, may just be Helio Castroneves. In 10 previous attempts, he's never started outside the top 10 and he converted two of those strong starts into victories and another pair of races into runner-up results. He kept that streak alive with a fourth-place start.

Danica Patrick rounds out the top five in fifth, which is her fourth top-10 start in five Texas attempts. In those races, she's never finished worse than 13th and has back-to-back top-10s in 2007/2008.

Lineup with avg. start/finish

Start	Driver	Avg. Fin	Avg. Start	Attempts
1	Dario Franchitti	8.40	7.40	5
2	Ryan Briscoe	7.50	7.50	2
3	Scott Dixon	6.75	6.50	8
4	Helio Castroneves	6.30	5.70	10
5	Danica Patrick	9.50	7.00	4
6	Mario Moraes	18.00	22.00	1
7	Dan Wheldon	9.11	11.89	9
8	Marco Andretti	17.33	11.67	3
9	Robert Doornbos
10	Ed Carpenter	17.00	15.43	7
11	Hideki Mutoh	6.00	4.00	1
12	Graham Rahal	11.00	18.00	1
13	Alex Tagliani
14	Sarah Fisher	14.25	17.88	8
15	Raphael Matos
16	Tony Kanaan	4.50	7.50	8
17	Justin Wilson	27.00	23.00	1
18	Tomas Scheckter	15.33	6.00	9
19	Mike Conway
20	Milka Duno	14.00	23.00	2
21	E J Viso	14.00	28.00	1
22	Anthony Foyt IV	17.43	16.43	7
23	Ryan Hunter-Reay	20.00	10.00	1
24	Jacques Lazier

More Indy Racing League Newsbreakers