Vasser Counts Title Chances on One Hand

Can a fast-fading Jimmy Vasser hold off a fast-finishing Michael Andretti and win the $1-million PPG Cup Indy car championship today at Laguna Seca Raceway?

All Vasser--a Monterey favorite who played high school football in Morgan Hill, about 45 miles north of here--needs to do is finish fifth or better in the Bank of America 300, even if Andretti leads the most laps and wins the 186-mile race around Laguna Seca’s 2.238-mile hillside road course.

After 15 races, Vasser has 142 points, Andretti 128 and Al Unser Jr. 125.

It sounds so easy, considering that Vasser has won four races and led the PPG Cup points for almost the entire season. But finishing fifth or better has not been easy for him in the second half of the 16-race season.

Only once in the last eight races has the 30-year-old Vasser finished that high, in stark contrast to the first six races, in which he won at Miami, Australia, Long Beach and the inaugural U.S. 500 at Michigan. Vasser has also never finished higher than eighth in four starts here.

Andretti, on the other hand, has won five times this season, including the last two races--both on road courses--at Elkhart Lake, Wis., and Vancouver, and has won twice before at Laguna Seca. He won from the pole in 1991, the year he won the Indy car championship, and repeated the following year when his victory here left him four points short of Bobby Rahal’s championship total.

Andretti’s hopes were dimmed somewhat when he qualified only 11th Saturday at 115.653 mph, while Vasser will start fifth with a 117.966 qualifying speed.

For the fourth consecutive race, Vasser’s Italian teammate, Alex Zanardi, won the pole with a record speed of 118.475.

Vasser and car owner Chip Ganassi insist they will be going for the win if at all possible.

“You can’t get defensive, you’ve got to give it all you’ve got,” Vasser said. “I’d like to win the race and finish the season on a high note, but if it’s near the end of the race and I’m where I need to be for the championship, maybe I’ll get a little conservative.”