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Martin Plowman preparing for practice

EDMONTON, Alberta – Martin Plowman, who has a best starting position of fifth on the three street circuits this season, topped the time chart in the lone Firestone Indy Lights practice July 23 for the Edmonton 100.

Plowman, driving the No. 27 Automatic Fire Sprinklers/KEP Printing car for AFS Racing Andretti Autosport, jumped to the top of the chart with two minutes remaining in the hourlong session with a lap of 1 minute, 7.1508 seconds (105.774 mph) on the 1.973-mile, 14-turn City Centre Airport course.

"We rolled out of the truck pretty much where we needed to be," said Plowman, who has finished in the top 10 of each of the five road/street course races this season. "I was confident with the guys in the setup here. We’ve tested at circuits similar to this and the car was on rails. This circuit was very green to begin with so I don’t think it’s representative of where we need to be in qualifying.

"We still have some work to do but I think we can be challenging for the podium, if not the win."

James Hinchcliffe, who has started on the front row of all three street circuits this season, transferring the pole start at Long Beach into his first Firestone Indy Lights victory, was second quick (1:07.3366; 105.482 mph) in the No. 2 TMR-Xtreme Coil Drilling car.

"I like the circuit, since the first time I came here," Hinchcliffe said. "It’s fast flowing. I have to thank the IndyCar drivers for going out first this morning; it was really kind of them. The track had a good amount of grip for a Friday first practice. The cars are pretty close.  We are still having some of the same issues we had at the beginning of the weekend in Toronto. We saw what happened to us in the race there (started second but finished 10th), so we are going to try and fix those in a hurry.  But this really isn’t a bad place to start the weekend."

Charlie Kimball (1:07.3765), series points leader J.K. Vernay (1:07.8383) and Adrian Campos Jr. (1:07.8491) filled out the top five.

"I forgot how fun this place is to fun to drive," Kimball said. "The No. 26 Levemir car was quick right out of the box. We ended up P3, but we have a few more adjustments to make. I know exactly what we want to do. The team did a great job getting it ready right after Toronto last weekend. We're gonna have a lot of fun this weekend."

A 45-minute morning practice precedes the one-hour qualifying at 5:15 p.m. (ET). Watch all the action on www.indycar.com.