INDY RACING LEAGUE

• Franchitti quickest in Indy Carb Day

  Indianapolis, IN (Sports Network) - Defending IZOD IndyCar Series champion Dario Franchitti topped the speed charts in Friday's Carb Day -- the final practice session for the Indianapolis 500.

  Helio Castroneves, the pole sitter, led the way early in the one-hour session before Franchitti turned a lap of 225.574 m.p.h. Franchitti will start third in this year's Indy 500, the same position he started from when he won this race in 2007.

  Castroneves, who finished fifth in practice, has an opportunity to make history at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. If the Team Penske driver wins on Sunday, not only would it be his record-tying fourth Indy 500 victory, but he would become the first driver to win back-to-back 500s twice as well.

  He would join A.J. Foyt, Rick Mears and Al Unser as the race's only four-time winners.

  "As far as I'm concerned, Helio can wait until I retire to join that elite group," Franchitti jokingly said. "We just don't want to beat one car and one team.

  We want to beat everybody, but in order to win this thing, we're going to have to go past the Penske team at some point." Franchitti's Target Chip Ganassi Racing teammate and 2008 Indy 500 winner Scott Dixon was second quickest in practice with a lap of 225.159 m.p.h. Dixon was followed by current points leader Will Power, who was the quickest among the three Penske teams.

  Dixon and Franchitti combined for 123 laps led in last year's Indy 500, but pit road mishaps for each one of the Ganassi drivers cost them an opportunity to win. Castroneves took the lead from Dixon with 59 laps remaining and held it for his third Indy 500 victory.

  "Last year, both Target cars, in my opinion, were the class of the field," Franchitti said. "We did have those bad pit stops with Scott and myself, and that just goes to show you, it's a team sport. It takes every single member of the crew of any of the teams out there to have a perfect day, to have a chance at winning this thing. It's very unusual for Team Target to make a mistake like that, but it didn't take us out of contention. We would like to remind them this Sunday and try to finish the job." Bruno Junqueira from FAZZT Race Team looked impressive in practice with the fourth fastest lap.

  E.J.

  Viso, Dan Wheldon, Mario Moraes, Raphael Matos and Alex Tagliani completed the top-10.

  Danica Patrick continued to struggle at Indianapolis with a 21st-place finish in practice. Last Saturday, Patrick endured her worst Indy 500 qualifying performance with a 23rd starting position. She had qualified no worse than 10th in her first five Indy 500 starts.

  05/28 13:27:13 ET