Paint on runway a concern for standing start

UPDATE Will Power has the pole and doesn't know what to do with it. Due to the number '2' being painted on the runway right where the inside car on the front row of the Rexall Grand Prix of Edmonton will sit for the standing start, the Australian now has a problem.

It's the same problem forecast by Sebastien Bourdais when he won the provisional pole Friday and a guaranteed spot on the front row for today's race.

"I have to go and have a look. There's paint there. If it is where we start, that means less grip," Power said.

Power has the option of taking the inside or outside position on the front row. Normally a driver would take the inside spot which would usually provide the lead going into the first turn.

Touring the track in 59:403 in yesterday's final qualifying session, Power broke Bourdais' track record of 58:628 set last year.

A.J. Allmendinger won the first pole here in 2005. Edmonton Sun

07/21/07 The problem is runway No. 2. Not the runway. The "2." Edmonton will witness a standing start for the first time with this edition of the Rexall Grand Prix of Edmonton. Photo courtesy of Champ Car

And the driver who won the provisional pole yesterday says the "2" painted on the runway is going to be a problem.

Sebastien Bourdais guaranteed himself a spot on the front row for tomorrow's race in yesterday's first qualifying session. If he stays in first after today's session, he'd normally have to drive over the painted 2.

"You'd be starting on the paint on the inside," he said. There's a big No. 2 you have to drive over. It's a big-ass No. 2. It takes a lot of paint to put that No. 2 on an airport runway. And paint doesn't give you any grip," he said of where it's located.

"On a rolling start, it was irrelevant."

If Bourdais ends up with the actual pole after today's qualifying, he says he might decide to take the outside spot on the grid instead of the inside.

He did that earlier this year when he won the pole in Cleveland.

"You have a choice of which side to take on the front row if you win the pole. In Cleveland there was a big-ass stripe painted on the runway at about the same place on the inside of the grid. So I took the outside," said the Newman-Haas-Lanigan driver who will be on the front row for the fifth time this season.

Cleveland and Edmonton are the two races in the 15-event series which are held on airport tracks. More at Edmonton Sun