De Ferran Is on Top Again

After taking the lead on lap 60 of the Budweiser-G.I. Joe’s 200 at Portland, Ore., Gil de Ferran’s goal was to build space to afford one last pit stop.

The strategy paid off as De Ferran, who hadn’t won a CART FedEx Series race in three years, came up with his third career victory Sunday by building a big enough gap over the rest of the field that he was able to pit for a splash of fuel and still stay in front.

After the leaders pitted under caution 37 laps from the end of the 98-lap race, it was Derrick Walker, whose team hadn’t won a race since 1995--when Robby Gordon was his driver--who chose to abandon the fuel conservation strategy being followed by everyone else.

“Basically, we knew we couldn’t make it to the end, so we just said, ‘We’ll go with what we’ve got, the guys will do the rest,’ and that’s what happened,” Walker said.

De Ferran, who took the lead when rookie Juan Montoya had a bad pit stop on lap 60, led the final 39 laps, driving his Reynard-Honda across the finish line 4.393 seconds in front of Montoya.

His average speed of 107.457 mph broke the track record of 101.355, set last year by Alex Zanardi, the man Montoya replaced at Target-Chip Ganassi Racing.

Walker determined de Ferran would need to build a lead of more than 20 seconds in order to make the stop and get back onto the track in front of Montoya. He did, holding a lead of about 29 seconds when he pitted at the end of lap 90, then making it back onto the track 8.020 seconds ahead of Montoya.

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After struggling for years on surfaces banked at 18 degrees or less, Bobby Labonte posted his fifth top-five finish in six races this year on the flats, winning the Pocono 500 on the flattest NASCAR track, Pocono International, at Long Pond, Pa.

Labonte won for the ninth time in his career, defeating three-time Pocono winner and reigning series champion Jeff Gordon by six car lengths. The victory moved Labonte to second in the series standings. After his 11th top-five finish overall, Labonte trails Dale Jarrett by 89 points after 15 of 34 races.