23.JUN
Portland Qualifying Session

Qualifying for this weekend's Freightliner G.I. Joe's 200 once again showed how ultra-competitive the CART Fed/Ex championship truly is.

	Max Wilson powers his winnerB2B to his best qualifying spot of his young CART Fed/Ex career. Check out the day's Slide Show

Brazilian rookie driver Max Wilson's best lap-58.636 seconds-- was only .851s. slower than pole winner Max Papis' best lap. Wilson's lap meant that he had his highest career starting position, 19th, with an average speed of 120.888 mph.

The Portland International Raceway has 12 numbered corners and Max's differential from the pole lap meant that he was losing an average of .07s. per corner to Papis' effort, an amount that is virtually undetectable to the human eye.

Further illustrating the level of competition of the series-and how much Max and the Arciero Blair have improved-drivers such as race winners Kenny Brack, Tony Kanaan and Alex Zanardi all qualified behind Max's winnerB2B Ford Lola.

The first 22 cars on the grid were separated by less than a second of the only qualifying session. Al indications were that it was going to be a very close race on Sunday.