Press Snoop: Kanaan fastest, George on the grid.

Reigning IRL IndyCar champion TONY KANAAN was the fastest car of 20 testing at Phoenix International Raceway on Wednesday, with a lap of 20.6994secs (173.918mph).

The open test will continue Thursday. Three of the four Andretti/Green Racing drivers were in the top five, with only SCOTT SHARP (Delphi/Fernandez) and SAM HORNISH Jr (Marlboro/Penske) breaking the stranglehold. Sharp now races for ADRIAN FERNANDEZ, whose two-car team will consist of Sharp and KOSUKE MATSUURA.

Fernandez himself will not be racing this year in IRL as his long-time Mexican sponsorships have dried up. Fernandez, however, will race in a one-off effort for the NASCAR Busch Series race in Mexico City at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. Fernandez will race #Lowes/Hitachi Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports in the Telcel Motorola Mexico 200 race, the third race on the 2005 schedule, and the first road race since 2001 when the series raced at Watkins Glen International. The Mexican driver is wildly popular in his home country and, whenever he raced there with Champ Car, there would be hordes of Hispanic media and fans following, and the crowd was filled with his familiar red and green team shirts.

Another popular Mexican open-wheel driver will be racing in the Mexico City Busch race - MICHEL JOURDAIN Jr. However, this is anything but a one-off effort. Jourdain has left open-wheel racing for stock cars and has a full season Busch Series ride for ppc Racing in the #10 Ford. His crew chief will be TODD GORDON. There are 44 drivers already listed for this year's Busch Series, including ten other rookies.

When Jourdain tested recently at Las Vegas, his spotter was Craftsman Truck Series driver, ANDY HOUSTON. Jourdain ran the NASCAR West Series race ten days ago at the Copper World Classic weekend at PIR. He started 16th and finished sixth.

IRL president and founder, TONY GEORGE, along with his wife LAURA, have founded a new team, Vision Racing LLC. The team will field two IRL entries for this season - stepson ED CARPENTER in a Toyota/Dallara in IndyCar, and JAY DRAKE in the IRL Menard Infiniti Pro Series.

MIKE ZIZZO has moved from NASCAR to Texas Motor Speedway. He moves from his position as NASCAR senior manager of communications to director of public relations at the Speedway Corporation's high-speed one-mile paved oval track. Prior to his NASCAR post, Zizzo had worked for what was then called CART (Championship Auto Racing Teams) as vice-president of competition public relations, after twelve years as sports writer for the Orlando Sentinel.

Australian V8 Supercar Champion MARCOS AMBROSE ran last weekend's Rolex 24 at Daytona and got to relax early when the car lost the gearbox while leading the eighth hour. Good thing. It left him rested for his honeymoon, which he is enjoying now. His co-drivers are back in Australia. JOHN TEULAN, a property developer in Queensland, is hard at work on the Australian Sport GT programme, which is the new evolution of the former Nations Cup.