TONY KANAAN was the fastest IndyCar driver Saturday morning in practice before Pole Day qualifying began for the 91st Indianapolis 500 race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Kanaan's fastest time came on his third lap, about halfway through the two-hour session. He went 226.236mph. Other leaders before Kanaan included RYAN BRISCOE, SAM HORNISH and MARCO ANDRETTI.

The cars went out in groups. All 22 drivers were in primary cars and all had Dallara chassis.

The weather was beautiful. The skies were cloudless and the temperatures were mild, in the seventies with a light breeze. Crowds were everywhere. In the plaza outside the Pagoda, there was a very long circuitous queue filling the plaza, waiting to get a collectible pin of the 2007 Chevrolet Corvette Indy 500 Pace Car.

IRL sent its scrutineer crew around to each garage after the morning practice, on a round-up. The teams were reminded of which position they had in the qualifying order and were asked if they would be getting in line. Those who don't have to wait until everyone has had his or her chance to qualify before getting in line. The out of order cars can't get in the qualifying line until they have been cleared by the scrutineers, and those cars are taken in order of the line-up. At noon just prior to the start of qualifying, ten cars had been cleared. There is no penalty for skipping one's qualifying draw position, and each driver gets three attempts per day.

MILKA DUNO was third on the qualifying list, but she will be a no show, as her car was still being repaired after Friday's hard crash during practice. The team was beavering away Saturday morning behind closed garage doors. The car is 'very small' at the moment, with nothing but the tub in view. The Dallara T-car is still in kit car form in the box. The crew said the race car would not make any of this weekend's qualifying sessions.

Duno came out of her hard hit unscathed. The actual G-force impact figures are confidential. She didn't hurt or break anything. This is a pleasant surprise to Dr TERRY TRAMMELL, the noted orthopaedic surgeon who specialises in race car injuries. He is a consultant to Indy Racing League and among his special projects is analysing seats and how to make them better - in IRL, or other open wheel series to which he is occasionally on loan. Trammell, one of the founders of the FIA Institute, has a grant from the Institute to work with F1 seats. He also works with Champ Car and has been analysing the seat and recent accident suffered by PAUL TRACY at the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. He suffered a compression fracture of the first lumbar vertebra.

Trammell has been taking measurements and is trying to determine what makes the difference in hard accidents - why Tracy broke a vertebra and Duno did not. Duno's seat was not hurt in the crash and probably will be used again.

In IRL, Trammell works with Dr HENRY BOCK, PHIL CASEY, JEFF HORTON and LES McTAGGART, and they are all overseen by BRIAN BARNHART, IRL president of competition and operations.

Firestone, the official tyre of Indy Racing League and mandatory for all IndyCars, makes a special tyre for the Indy 500. All tyres have special lettering and logo on the sidewall. It consists of large white Firehawk lettering, large white Indy 500 lettering, smaller Firestone lettering - white for the left side tyres and red for the right side tyres; and all tyres have the distinctive multi-colour Indy 500 graphic.

Pole Day qualifying runs from noon to 6pm local time.