Ryan Hunter-Reay was quickest in second practice in Long Beach, despite spinning into the tires during the session. Andretti Autosport had two cars in the top three, as Tony Kanaan backed Hunter-Reay up with third place, the duo split by Penske's Ryan Briscoe.

"In the first session, we knew the track was pretty bad, so we didn't get out of our mindset of sticking to our guns. We knew what worked," said Hunter-Reay. "In the second session, we just worked on the balance of the car. We found what did work and what didn't work. I think there's still a little more time in the car, so we're pretty happy with it. It's going to get quicker tomorrow, and these guys are all going to go quicker. So we'll have to keep changing, keep on top of the developing racetrack. It's good, though. The guys did a good job. The good thing is we only used two sets of tires today."

Hunter-Reay spun into the tires heading onto the back straight, causing one of the session's four stoppages. He escaped with only minor rear wing damage, and was soon able to rejoin and set the day's benchmark time with a 1:10.6346. Both Briscoe and Kanaan got to under a tenth of a second, but could not beat Hunter-Reay to the top spot.

"It's the first step toward beating him," Briscoe said of finally edging his fellow Australian teammate Power. "He's doing an amazing job. He's definitely going to be the one to beat in qualifying tomorrow. He's been fast here in the past.

"I think, as a team, we're extremely strong at the moment. We're really pushing each other a lot. There's a really good vibe within. And I really feel like coming into this part of the season, I really need to step it up in qualifying. For sure, to get the race wins, my first step is going to be stepping it up in qualifying."

Alex Tagliani and the new FAZZT team were an excellent fourth, ahead of points leader and morning pacesetter Will Power (Penske), and Dreyer & Reinbold's Justin Wilson.

"We kind of knew that Long Beach was going to be a more suitable track for our car," said Tagliani. "We are still in the learning process, and I think today we learned a lot and made very good changes to the car. We recovered well from our incident this morning, and the guys did a fantastic job of getting the car ready to go for the last practice. The car is very close, but we're still trying to get a little bit more out of the car and the track continues to grip up. There's been like a second of improvement from this morning's times to this afternoon. I feel that the team is where it needs to be and with this particular track and what is happening and how competitive we are the team is right where it needs to be. We are still learning more information, and now we are gathering a good group of data from the most recent tracks, so we are starting to come full circle on our information. If we can build on the information, I think we'll continue to be more consistent and have the car where we want it which is quick out of the box."

Target Chip Ganassi Racing was also in the wars during the afternoon. Dario Franchitti nosed into the same tire barrier as Hunter-Reay, although he was quickly extracted and able to rejoin with a new front wing. His teammate Scott Dixon then slid into the tires at Turn 1 right at the end of the session, just as the field was released for a final flying lap following a previous stoppage caused by Bertrand Baguette crashing his Conquest car.

Between incidents, Franchitti and Dixon secured seventh and 10th places, sandwiching Mario Moraes (KV) and Helio Castroneves (Penske).


Pos  Driver               Team                    Time        Gap

 1.  Ryan Hunter-Reay     Andretti                1m10.6346s

 2.  Ryan Briscoe         Penske                  1m10.6979s  + 0.0634s

 3.  Tony Kanaan          Andretti                1m10.7334s  + 0.0988s

 4.  Alex Tagliani        Fazzt                   1m10.7995s  + 0.1650s

 5.  Will Power           Penske                  1m10.8640s  + 0.2295s

 6.  Justin Wilson        Dreyer & Reinbold       1m10.9195s  + 0.2849s

 7.  Dario Franchitti     Ganassi                 1m10.9285s  + 0.2939s

 8.  Mario Moraes         KV                      1m10.9642s  + 0.3297s

 9.  Helio Castroneves    Penske                  1m11.0267s  + 0.3921s

10.  Scott Dixon          Ganassi                 1m11.0751s  + 0.4406s

11.  Raphael Matos        Luczo Dragon/de Ferran  1m11.1231s  + 0.4886s

12.  Marco Andretti       Andretti                1m11.2022s  + 0.5676s

13.  Takuma Sato          KV                      1m11.3858s  + 0.7512s

14.  Hideki Mutoh         Newman/Haas/Lanigan     1m11.3981s  + 0.7635s

15.  Simona de Silvestro  HVM                     1m11.4294s  + 0.7948s

16.  Dan Wheldon          Panther                 1m11.9148s  + 1.2802s

17.  EJ Viso              KV                      1m11.9308s  + 1.2963s

18.  Vitor Meira          Foyt                    1m11.9809s  + 1.3464s

19.  Graham Rahal         Sarah Fisher            1m11.9863s  + 1.3517s

20.  Mario Romancini      Conquest                1m12.0613s  + 1.4267s

21.  Bertrand Baguette    Conquest                1m12.0952s  + 1.4607s

22.  Mike Conway          Dreyer & Reinbold       1m12.1850s  + 1.5504s

23.  Danica Patrick       Andretti                1m12.4116s  + 1.7771s

24.  Alex Lloyd           Dale Coyne              1m12.4210s  + 1.7864s

25.  Milka Duno           Dale Coyne              1m27.3002s  + 16.6656s