NEWTON, Iowa -- Dario Franchitti remembers well the last time he participated in a heat race. "(It was) 1989 in go-karts back in Scotland." He didn't divulge the results.

This time, the four-time IZOD IndyCar Series champion won't soon forget the third heat race of the day, which determined the pole winner and set the first four rows for the Iowa Corn Indy 250. He won it.

Franchitti, who leaped into the top eight on the time chart in the final seconds of practice to qualify for the heat race, passed Marco Andretti on Lap 8 of 30 and went on the claim the point for the 250-lap race under the lights June 23.

Click it: Iowa Corn Indy 250 qualifying results || Heat 1 || Heat 2 || Heat 3

It was the second consecutive week that Franchitti has started on pole, and was the 28th of his Indy car career (passing Al Unser for eighth on the all-time list).

Results of the second practice session determined the fields for the 30-lap qualifying races. The top eight comprised Race 3, while Race 1 consisted of even-numbered positions in practice to determine the even-numbered spots in the starting lineup, starting from 10th down. Race 3 followed the same format for odd-numbered cars, starting from ninth down.

“We were struggling a little bit this morning with the Target car in race trim but we made it much better in the second session of practice," said Franchitti, who started third and fourth in his previous two victories at Iowa Speedway (2007 and '09). "But the heat (race) the car stuck and we were able to put the Target car around the outside of Marco, kind of like I watched (Tony Kanaan) do in the heat race before me.

"I got out in front and the car felt good – no troubles for the rest of the run with no real fall off till the end of the race. Physically, it is a tough track so it will be an interesting race for us. Good to be starting up front here for sure.”

Franchitti led Helio Castroneves, driving the No. 3 Penske Truck Rental car, to the start-finish line of the .894-mile track by 1.4671 seconds. It will be the second front-row start of the season and the fourth at Iowa Speedway for Castroneves, who won the opener at St. Petersburg.

"Certainly, 30 laps I believe was enough, but it was getting tough out there," he said. "I was able to make a pass on Marco (Lap 16), but then there wasn’t enough time to catch Dario."

Andretti, who topped the time chart in the two practice sessions, and Andretti Autosport teammate James Hinchcliffe will be on Row 2.

"We really wanted to get the pole, but we were a little off on our gearing for the car," said Andretti, who won the race last year from the 17th starting spot. "We can work on that; it's really the race that counts. The RC Cola car was fast all day, so we just need to tune on it a little bit to get back out front when it really means something. We can win it from there."

Team Penske teammates Ryan Briscoe and Will Power, the IZOD IndyCar Series championship points leader, will start on Row 3. Ryan Hunter-Reay, the winner last week at Milwaukee, will be on Row 4 with Scott Dixon.

Tony Kanaan and Graham Rahal were the other heat race winners to qualify ninth and 10th, respectively, but they'll incur 10-grid spot penalties for unapproved engine changes. Alex Tagliani and Josef Newgarden will take their spots on Row 5.

Also being penalized 10 grid spots for unapproved engine changes will be E.J. Viso (qualified 16th) and Simon Pagenaud.

The qualifying system, which will be the only time it's employed this season, received positive remarks from drivers.

"As a first stab at it, I thought it was really good," Franchitti said.

Many suggested a few tweaks suggested, such as splitting the practice session to assign cars to heats into groups and transferring the Race 1 and Race 2 winners into the third race for the pole.

"I'd like to see some sort of link to traditional short track, dirt track racing where you run heats to progress through," said Charlie Kimball, driver of the No. 83 Novo Nordisk Chip Ganassi Racing car. "But as a starting point it was good."