By Andrew Charman

This week the Indy Racing League's currently hectic schedule drops into Kansas, for the Argent mortgage Indy 300 on a superfast speedway where laps are turned at 210mph average. Currently the league is in the middle of five races in six weeks and Andretti-Green Racing – and particularly Dan Wheldon – seems to be the team to beat, the young Brit having won last time out at Richmond.

The early going here, however, suggests the man to beat could well be the winner of the biggest race of the season, Buddy Rice. Victorious in the Indianapolis 500, Rice has made the most of his subbing role for the injured Kenny Brack at Rahal-Letterman Racing. In the last week he has been told he will keep his seat for the year, and celebrated by taking pole position on the Kansas track in his #15 Argent/Pioneer Panoz G Force-Honda, his third top start spot of the season. Rice clocked 210.141mph on the 1.52-mile tri-oval and was happy with his performance. “We made some adjustments just before qualifying and they seemed to work,” Rice said afterwards. “It doesn't matter whether we qualify early or late in the session because all of the adjustments we've been making seem to work. I think we should be okay for the race tomorrow, in fact, we've been okay since Homestead and I think we've got a good handle on the car. We should be quite strong in the race.”

The Rahal-Letterman squad seems to be really tuned in to the demands of Kansas. Vitor Meira, who has only recently earned a race-by-race drive in the second #17 car but has been increasingly impressive with each outing, lines up third, with the first of the Andretti-Green cars splitting the Rahal pair. Tony Kanaan, who has two victories this season and currently leads the standings by 15 points form team-mate Dan Wheldon, lapped the track at 209.681mph in the #11 Team 7-Eleven Dallara-Honda.

Joining Meira on the second row will be the first of the Penske entries. Sam Hornish Jr clocked 209.262mph in the Marlboro-liveried #6 Dallara-Toyota, looking to rediscover the form that saw him take the season-opening race in Miami. The omens are good – Penske finished second and third here a year ago.

Position five belongs to Tomas Scheckter's #4 Pennzoil Dallara-Chevrolet, and he's got a new team-mate at Panther Racing. British rookie Mark Taylor has tried the team's patience with five crashes in six races, and so at Kansas ChampCar refuges Townsend Bell is in the car, and he's immediately impressed, taking seventh spot with only the second Penske of Helio Castroneves between the two Panther cars.

After Kosuke Matsuura in eighth the fifth row comprises Brit Dario Franchitti, still hunting a turnaround of some rotten luck this year, and Bryan Herta, hoping he can reproduce the form that saw him win this race last year. And the most impressive Brit of 2004? Double race-winner Dan Wheldon lines up a disappointing 13th on the grid. But last week in Richmond, he started 19th – and won…

The green flag flies at around 12.30pm Eastern Time on Sunday, that's 5.30pm in the UK. Stay tuned to crasdh.net for the full story from Kansas.