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HOMESTEAD - Tomas Scheckter is making a smooth transition to his new team, turning in the fastest lap on the first day of practice for the IRL's season-opening Toyota Indy 300.
After posting a lap of 216.894 mph Friday on Homestead-Miami Speedway's 11/2-mile oval, its corners reconfigured since the opener a year ago, Scheckter found himself sitting between champion Scott Dixon and Alex Barron.
The middle spot at the end-of-the-day news conference is reserved for the fastest driver.
"I'm feeling pretty comfortable right now," the South African driver said, grinning as he looked on either side at drivers racing for his former IRL teams. "Especially sitting in the middle."
Barron, starting his first full season with Red Bull Cheever Racing, for which Scheckter drove in 2002, was second at 216.596. Dixon, Scheckter's teammate last year at Chip Ganassi Racing, followed at 216.460.
Scheckter, son of former Formula One champion Jody Scheckter, was released by Ganassi at the end of 2003 and hooked on with Pennzoil Panther Racing after two-time series champion Sam Hornish left to join Marlboro Team Penske.
EX-CHAMP DROWNS: Four-time NASCAR Winston West series champion Roy Smith drowned when a commercial fishing trawler sank off northern Vancouver Island in Victoria, British Columbia. Smith, 59, who competed in the Daytona 500 three times, was a crew member of the 80-foot Hope Bay, which foundered in heavy seas early Thursday about 60 miles north of Vancouver Island in Queen Charlotte Sound.
NHRA: Rookie Eric Medlen paced the Funny Car field, covering a quarter-mile in 4.792 seconds at 306.46 mph, in the Winternationals at Pomona, Calif. Tony Schumacher led Top Fuel in 4.514 at 326.32, and Greg Anderson set a track record for elapsed time with a run of 6.730 at 204.57 in Pro Stock.