On Saturday, Stewart led the last practice session over Guthrie (0.021s off) and Luyendyk with a 167.973 mph lap, and asserted his dominance on qualifying, putting his car on pole with a 170.012 mph lap. Guthrie was the last driver scheduled to qualify and, despite running the fastest first lap, he came up short at 169.484 mph, comfortably qualifying in a career-best second place. Despite the IRL cars being 15 mph off 1996's speeds, Guthrie qualified 6 mph faster than the previous year, when he qualified 18th. He likened his efforts as "the David and Goliath story", as he was competing unsponsored, with an engine that had run 640 miles and had been rebuilt three times, as they could not afford a new one. Guthrie owed $185,000 to his creditors, having bought his chassis by taking out a loan against his house for a second time. His team, of which Guthrie was co-owner, arrived at the track with a rental flatbed trailer and a race crew composed of volunteers. 4 mph off Stewart, Treadway Racing swept the second row with Scott Goodyear and Luyendyk, in front of Buzz Calkins and Robbie Buhl, the early leaders before Stewart's run.
