DETROIT GRAND PRIX : Fittipaldi Dodges Trouble, Then Holds Off Rahal

The constant was Bobby Rahal, second for the fourth time this season. The variable was Emerson Fittipaldi, whose victory Sunday in the Detroit Grand Prix made him the sixth CART Indy car winner in as many races this year.

Fittipaldi held off Rahal during the final dozen laps driving virtually one-handed, after a 50-minute delay caused by a bizarre incident involving Mario Andretti and his son Michael and a safety truck that caused a stoppage of nearly an hour.

“I had a good lead after the restart, but with seven laps to go my car starting jumping out of gear,” Fittipaldi said. “I had to drive with my left hand, and I had to hold the gearshift with my right hand. It was very difficult to be quick that way.”

Still, Fittipaldi, whose wife, Theresa, was in Miami awaiting the birth of the couple’s fifth child, managed to beat Rahal to the finish line by 0.29 seconds--less than two car lengths over the tight 2.5-mile, 17-turn circuit through the streets of downtown Detroit.

“I didn’t sense he was having a problem,” Rahal said. “At times, he got wide in some corners and was locking the brakes up in some places, but I was doing the same thing. We were both driving very hard.”

The wild incident that interrupted the race began when Dennis Vitolo, already far off the leaders’ pace, stopped in the fourth turn, a blind, slow right-hander. The car was hooked up to a CART safety truck, which was about to pull away when Mario Andretti came around the turn hard and slid into the back of the truck, the nose of his car under the truck and the rear partially blocking the track.

Several cars, including that of leader Fittipaldi, made it through the narrow space, but second-place Michael Andretti, the pole-winner and defending race champion, skidded into Vitolo’s stopped car.

That pretty much blocked the track and Rahal, running third, had to come to a full stop to keep from hitting anyone. CART officials red-flagged the rest of the field while the mess was cleared.

Michael’s car was too badly damaged to continue, but Mario’s was repaired and restarted.

Mario, who angrily told his crew his version of the accident in the pits, cooled down before speaking with the media. He said, “This car was the only thing I could see coming around the corner. I didn’t know that big truck was out there. Usually in a situation like that, you have a full-course yellow.”

Nobody was injured in the incident.

Fittipaldi, who averaged 53.79 m.p.h. in the victory, earned his 13th Indy car victory.