Fort Worth, Texas ? Tomas Scheckter has a well-earned reputation in his short Indy Racing League career as a fast driver. He also is known for crashing cars.

In a contentious rookie season driving for Eddie Cheever Jr. last year, Scheckter won a race and three poles, and led five races. But he also failed to finish six of his 12 races because of accidents, leading to a nasty split from the Red Bull team.

Scheckter is back on the pole, and will start on the front row tonight at Texas Motor Speedway with Scott Dixon, his Target Chip Ganassi Racing teammate. Scheckter qualified at 219.300 mph, and Dixon was at 218.654 mph.

“The main thing that I feel I’ve improved on, I don’t get fired up as quickly,” Scheckter said. “I really have slowed down in the car, and if you listen over the radio from last year to this year, I drive now more like a computer, which I think is better for everybody.”

Scheckter has a pair of top-10 finishes for Ganassi, including a fourth-place finish at the Indianapolis 500 when had a race-high laps led (63) for the second year in a row. He finished eighth in the season opener at Homestead, Fla., won by Dixon.

In between, Scheckter wrecked late in races at Phoenix and Japan. He was running fourth at Phoenix when Ganassi told him to push the car in an effort to get up front, and was leading at Japan when he hit the wall coming out of the fourth turn on the 168th lap.

“The accidents he’s had for us are flukes,” Ganassi said.

Toyota-powered cars make up the top three starting spots and seven of the top 10 for the Bombardier 500, with Honda engines in the other three. The highest-starting Chevrolet is two-time defending IRL champion Sam Hornish Jr. at 16th in the 22-car field.

Tora Takagi starts third on the 11¼2-mile high-banked track in his Toyota-powered machine, while series points leader Tony Kanaan starts his Honda on the outside of the second row.

Ganassi made the full transition this season from CART, where he won four consecutive titles from 1996-99. He had a three-car CART team last year and ran only one IRL entry with Jeff Ward, whose only win last season was at Texas.

Ganassi opted for a young IRL team, bringing Dixon from his CART team and hiring Scheckter, the son of 1979 Formula One champion Jody Scheckter.