Top 22 separated by six-tenths of a second

A record 23 driver/car combinations turned 2,817 laps on the Homestead-Miami Speedway oval during the second and final day of Indy Pro Series preseason testing. Bobby Wilson, right, led the way.

That’s 4,225.5 trouble-free miles on the sun-baked asphalt that will see the same cars March 24 in the first of 16 races (seven ovals). So after six hours of adjusting shocks, tinkering with wing angles and monitoring telemetry – among the items on checklists — is everyone good to go?

On a day when the top 22 were separated by 0.6975 of a second, it appears the racing in the Miami 100 will be close and contentious. Last March, Jeff Simmons beat Nick Bussell to the finish by 0.0199 of a second.

Bobby Wilson, a title contender in 2006, led the way with a best lap of 185.876 mph (28.7611 seconds) in the No.1 Brian Stewart Racing car.

1/18 Scale 2006 Indianapolis 500 Rookie Of The Year Marco Andretti Car By Greenlight. “Hats off to the team today; they did a great job," said Wilson, who won at Watkins Glen International last year in a Kenn Hardley Racing-prepared car. “The car was awesome. We showed some speed straight away in the session and then kept getting faster. We were trying some different setups. It’s pretty windy out there, and one end of the track handles a little different than the other. We came across a pretty good compromise, and that’s how we got our time."

Rank Car Driver Name Time Speed
1 1 Wilson, Bobby 28.7611 185.876
2 7 Lloyd, Alex 28.7828 185.736
3 2 Wood, Tom 28.8006 185.621
4 23 Gomez, Logan 28.8119 185.548
5 9 Festa, Chris 28.8186 185.505
6 34 Brownson, Jon 28.8248 185.465
7 55 Mutoh, Hideki 28.8311 185.425
8 11 Camara, Jaime 28.9123 184.904
9 38 Justice, Ryan 28.9471 184.682
10 52 Losch, Ken 28.9597 184.601
11 52 Potekhen, Mike 28.9824 184.457
12 10 Perez, Pablo 29.0272 184.172
13 4 Guthrie, Sean 29.0397 184.093
14 13 Pecorari, Robbie 29.0986 183.720
15 3 Jaeger, Brad 29.1876 183.160
16 6 Lewis, Shane 29.2057 183.046
17 5 Prendeville, Andrew 29.2535 182.747
18 8 Lewis, Shane 29.3731 182.003
19 40 Wieringa, Tom 29.3758 181.987
20 12 Russell, AJ 29.3898 181.900
21 54 Gilbert, Micky 29.4250 181.682
22 6 Ablondi, Steve 29.4586 181.475
23 15 Scarallo, Joey 29.8426 179.140

INDY PRO SERIES QUOTEBOOK:

LOGAN GOMEZ (No. 23 Sam Schmidt Motorsports, fourth-fastest): "The Sam Schmidt Motorsports team gave me a great car to learn on. There's no better team I could've jumped on to. They couldn't have made it easier for me to learn how to drive on an oval, especially one like this. It takes a lot of confidence to go around here flat out, for me. It was a big step. The team really made it easy, comfortable car. From there, we focused on getting it fast. Having a great teammate like Alex (Lloyd) to go out there and go flat out in five laps really set the benchmark too. Hopefully, rookies like myself get to get the right habits going, learn how to drive in a pack, and hopefully we'll have some good, clean racing this year."

ALEX LLOYD (No. 7 Sam Schmidt Motorsports, second fastest): "We had a good day. We had a few troubles just before lunch and right after lunch, which cost us a couple of hours of running, so we didn't get to do any running in a pack at the end. We did a 28.8 on our own, not in qualifying spec really either, so we were very happy with our pace. I think were comfortably quickest out there on our own. Unfortunately, I thought on my last lap I was going to get a really good draft and try and come away with P1, but it didn't happen. The cars in front got a bit tangled up, and I had to back off a bit. But all in all we were really happy. It's amazing how good the car is. It's really a very well-balanced car. We're looking forward to the race."

BOBBY WILSON (No. 1 Brian Stewart Racing, fastest driver during test): "Hats off to the team today. They did a great job. The car was awesome. I'd like to thank my sponsor, Ocala Gran Prix, for allowing me this opportunity to run with Brian Stewart Racing this year. My outlook is very positive and optimistic. We showed some speed straight away in the session and then kept getting faster. All in all it's a good day. We were trying some different setups. It's pretty windy out there, and one end of the track handles a little different than the other. We were just kind of jacking around with various setups. We came across a pretty good compromise, and that's how we got our time."