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CART U.S. 500 Takes Back Seat to Fontana

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

Two years ago, when Championship Auto Racing Teams chose to go head to head with the Indianapolis 500, it held a race at Michigan Speedway and grandiosely called it the U.S. 500. They paid $1 million to the winner.

It was to be the marquee event of the season, CART’s main event.

Things haven’t worked out as planned. The event comes far from selling out Michigan’s 112,000 seats, as NASCAR does with its Winston Cup race each year. The winner’s purse, instead of $1 million, was reduced to the same as any other CART race, somewhere in the neighborhood of $100,000.

Today, the third U.S. 500 is merely the 12th round of CART’s 19-race season. Nothing special other than being 500 miles, the marquee distance for the NASCAR’s Daytona 500 and the Indy Racing League’s Indy 500.

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Before today’s race, however, CART has scheduled a news conference to announce the Marlboro 500 on Nov. 1 at California Speedway again will pay $1 million to the winner--meaning the series’ marquee race is now the season-ending event in Fontana.

Both the Michigan and California two-mile ovals are owned by Penske Motorsports.

The announcement also is designed to bring the payout to the winner of CART’s main race more in line with the take of the Indy 500 winner. Eddie Cheever collected $1,433,000 for winning at Indianapolis last May. The record is Arie Luyendyk’s $1,568,000 in 1997.

The name of the Fontana race will be revealed today. Speculation has it as the Marlboro Million, or perhaps the Marlboro U.S. 500. If the sponsor’s name is eliminated, it may be known as the CART Championship 500.

“While I bought into and agreed with our stand a few years ago for the U.S. 500 to go up against the Indy 500, and while little has changed in my opinion, I feel that we need a marquee race at the end of the year,” said Chip Ganassi, owner of the CART championship team the past two year.

“Ideally, I would like to see the regular season end at Monterey [Laguna Seca], the way it did for years, and then go to Fontana and run for $5 million or $10 million and make it like a World Series or a Super Bowl.”

That may happen in a few years, but this year’s multimillion-dollar Fontana race will be a regular points event.

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Neither today’s race nor the one at Fontana will have the dangerously high speeds of last year’s California 500 in which Mauricio Gugelmin ran a closed-course record 240.942 mph in qualifying.

CART’s new Handford Wing, an aerodynamic device designed to slow the cars, did what it was supposed to do during Saturday’s qualifying for today’s race.

Adrian Fernandez won the pole with a lap of 229.519, down more than 4 mph from last year’s pole speed. It was Patrick Racing’s second consecutive U.S. 500 pole, Scott Pruett having taken the honors last year at 233.857.

“The car ran perfect, but the race will be a different thing,” Fernandez said after winning his first CART pole. “It’s going to be harder to get the car perfect for the race. It’s difficult to know what a car wants for 500 miles, but it’s a good start when you’re sitting on the pole.”

The 33-year-old Mexican driver won the $10,000 Marlboro Pole Award and if he wins the race will receive a $295,000 bonus.

Jimmy Vasser, the 1996 U.S. 500 winner who has been overshadowed this year by teammate Alex Zanardi, will start alongside Fernandez with a 228.855-mph run.

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Zanardi, who won his first oval race here last year and is the defending series champion, qualified seventh at 227.237, but did not seem upset at not starting nearer the front.

“We have a good race car, but that doesn’t mean anything because it’s a 500-mile race,” he said. “The circuit will change throughout the day, the balance of the car will change, and we’ll just have to react to the changes and adapt throughout the day. That’s why we were able to win last year.”

Zanardi is going for a CART-record fifth consecutive win.

“It would mean a lot, but not so much because of the record but because it will mean another win, and that’s what we want to do--keep winning races.”

Motor Racing Notes

Kenny Brack overcame a pit-stop mix-up late in the VisionAire 500 at Concord, N.C., regaining the lead 13 laps from the finish to claim the first Indy Racing League victory of his career.

Brack, 33, started third and appeared to have the race in control on lap 173. He failed to pit with the leaders for one final fuel topoff under the seventh and final caution flag, sending car owner A.J. Foyt into a rage.

Brack would pit one lap later under caution, but by that time had given the lead away to Jeff Ward.

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It took Brack about 20 laps to track down Ward, catching him on the backstretch on lap 195. Brack ended up cruising to victory by 5.1 seconds.

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Today’s Race at a Glance

* Event: CART U.S. 500.

* When: Today.

* TV: Channel 7, noon (delay).

* Site: Brooklyn, Mich.

* Track: Michigan Speedway (oval, 2.0 miles, 18 degrees banking in corners).

* Race distance: 500 miles, 250 laps.

* Last year: Italy’s Alex Zanardi raced to his first oval-track victory, beating England’s Mark Blundell by nearly a full lap.

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