Points leader Scott Dixon was sixth fastest on day one, complaining of a lack of grip and balance from the leading Target Chip Ganassi car, complaints repeated by seventh-placed Tony Kanaan. In eighth, however, returnee Paul Tracy was happy with what he and the hybrid Walker/Vision team had achieved on their first day of action for almost four months. The former Champ Car champion passed his physical before the morning session and was allowed to turn a few laps prior to practice for a systems check.
It went as well as you could hope for," the Canadian admitted, "We hoped to come in and have the car run all day, and we did that. The crew did a great job as they had a very small amount of time to get the car ready - only a couple of weeks - so Derrick [Walker] and his group did a great job. Tony [George] gave us this car to use but, going from an oval set-up to a road course set-up, it was missing a lot of the bits, so we're pleasantly satisfied with how it went. I haven't driven since Long Beach, and I haven't driven much at all I've had one test day since Surfers [Paradise] last year. Hopefully, things will come back a little easier tomorrow and we can work on the race set-up. It's going to be a tough one.
Two other drivers who raced at Edmonton in last year's CCWS, Graham Rahal and Bruno Junqueira, rounded out the top ten, with the American still chasing the right feeling from his car, now bearing the logos of both event sponsor Rexall and the local Edmonton Oilers ice hockey team.
The start of the day was all right, but I think we were a little too far off in terms of set-up," Rahal said, "This is such a different car than we are used to here. We showed up, and the car was bottoming like crazy. It was like getting punched in the face ten times a lap, and it hurts. But we were close enough that we decided to make this afternoon's session a little bit of a test session.
![Will Power - Team Australia/KV Racing Technology [Pic credit: IRL/Snoddy]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/472051.jpg)
