Will Power left his rivals – and teammates – questioning where his speed came from in a dominant qualifying performance for the IZOD IndyCar Series Kentucky Indy 300.

Power, who has won seven poles on road and street courses in 2011, secured his first oval pole of the season and second of his career (Iowa, 2010 his first).

The Team Penske driver's two-lap average of 219.283 was nearly a full mph faster than second-placed Graham Rahal. The front row in Kentucky mirrors the front row in Baltimore, although once again Power set a demoralizing time that left Rahal in the dust.

“When we tested, our cars weren't as strong in traffic, but we did a few details to fix it,” Power said. “It's just a good start to the weekend.”

Rahal qualified fastest of the quartet of Ganassi cars at 218.348mph, the only driver in that range. Scott Dixon timed in seventh after leading both of the morning's practice sessions, with Charlie Kimball 10th just ahead of Dario Franchitti in 11th.

“That lap surprised all of us,” Rahal said. “We did 218.5 with a tow in practice, and thought we'd be where Dario and Scott's times when they set theirs. We took it easy on the tires for how cold it is.”

A host of surprises followed. James Hinchcliffe secured his best career qualifying position in third ahead of Ed Carpenter (Sarah Fisher Racing) and Hinchcliffe's rookie-of-the-year rival JR Hildebrand in the top five. Hildebrand's run is his first aboard the newly repainted "pink Panther" camouflage livery (ABOVE).

“I guess I'm feeding the stereotype by being a Canadian doing well in cold weather,” Hinchcliffe joked. “We peeled some extra downforce off and went the opposite of Oriol (Servia). So we were either going to be way better or way worse. We're super happy since 1.5s weren't our strengths after Texas.”

Marco Andretti posted his best start of the season in P6 ahead of Dixon, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Servia and Kimball.

Power's Penske teammates were thoroughly befuddled after their runs, and reacted rather differently. The last two drivers out, Helio Castroneves and Ryan Briscoe ran in the coolest temperatures of the evening and couldn't generate the power. Castroneves and Briscoe clocked in 16th and 18th respectively.

“It was an interesting qualifying,” Castroneves said. “The good news is we still have Will up front. We won with great strategy last year, let's go for it again.”

“To me, there's something wrong with the engine,” Briscoe said. “We're running the same as Will and were 2 or 3mph slower. I'm really confused, perplexed. The car feels solid, but it's just slow. It feels like a dog of an engine.”

Elsewhere Simona de Silvestro had her best ever oval start, P13, next to Danica Patrick on a very intriguing row seven. None of KV Racing Technology-Lotus's three cars qualified better than 19th. Dillon Battistini starts 25th for his IndyCar debut.

Dan Wheldon didn't qualify for Sam Schmidt, which raised a few eyebrows considering he'll now start in the back of the field two races running. Schmidt surmised it was a technical issue as the car didn't pass inspection, rather than give light to any conspiracy theories.

“They could have a field day with this, but (tech) said the backing plates were wrong,” Schmidt said. “It's pretty frustrating for everyone, we've had the same Dallara plates all year. One of the driving forces for him being here was to get Dan a good pit stall at Las Vegas from qualifying here. The consolation is good practice for Las Vegas, but this certainly isn't how we want to do it.”

It was an unfortunate qualifying session for Pippa Mann as well, who spun on cold tires exiting the pits and made light contact with the inside retaining wall at Turn 1. Unlike her pre-qualifying accident in New Hampshire, Mann should be able to start for Kentucky on Sunday.

Pos  Driver               Team                     Speed
 1.  Will Power           Penske                   219.283
 2.  Graham Rahal         Ganassi                  218.348
 3.  James Hinchcliffe    Newman/Haas              218.186
 4.  Ed Carpenter         Sarah Fisher             218.004
 5.  JR Hildebrand        Panther                  217.872
 6.  Marco Andretti       Andretti                 217.807
 7.  Scott Dixon          Ganassi                  217.692
 8.  Ryan Hunter-Reay     Andretti                 217.632
 9.  Oriol Servia         Newman/Haas              217.520
10.  Charlie Kimball      Ganassi                  217.357
11.  Dario Franchitti     Ganassi                  217.213
12.  Mike Conway          Andretti                 217.110
13.  Simona de Silvestro  HVM                      216.924
14.  Danica Patrick       Andretti                 216.768
15.  Wade Cunningham      Sam Schmidt              216.763
16.  Helio Castroneves    Penske                   216.732
17.  Buddy Rice           Panther                  216.685
18.  Ryan Briscoe         Penske                   216.669
19.  Tony Kanaan          KV                       216.484
20.  Ana Beatriz          Dreyer & Reinbold        216.424
21.  Vitor Meira          Foyt                     216.300
22.  Takuma Sato          KV                       215.856
23.  EJ Viso              KV                       215.789
24.  Alex Lloyd           Dale Coyne               215.607
25.  Dillon Battistini    Conquest                 215.578
26.  Townsend Bell        Dreyer & Reinbold        215.404
27.  James Jakes          Dale Coyne               214.297
28.  Dan Wheldon          Sam Schmidt
29.  Pippa Mann           Rahal Letterman Lanigan