Vasser Proves He Still Has Some Run Left

My, my, look who’s making noise again in CART champ car racing. It’s nice little Jimmy Vasser, who won the series championship in 1996, then faded as more flashy teammates--first Alex Zanardi, then last year Juan Montoya-- stepped to the forefront and made the Target Chip Ganassi team CART’s most feared and respected.

Four consecutive championships raised Ganassi’s outfit out of the mundane and into the elite.

Most surprising in that sudden rise--especially in ’96 when Vasser, winless in four previous seasons, won four of them--was the equipment. Everyone else was running engines built by Cosworth or Ilmor, brands with solid credentials and victories to match. Vasser was driving cars powered by Honda, the engine to which Bobby Rahal had dedicated two years of his racing life, reaping nothing but frustration. For Vasser, it was a career builder.

It was a bit of a shock, then, when Ganassi announced after last season that he was giving up his Reynard- Honda package. It was an even bigger shock when he said he was replacing it with Lola cars powered by Toyota engines. Toyota is the engine to which Dan Gurney dedicated four years of his racing life, reaping nothing but frustration.

But Sunday, in the, ahem, Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, guess who was right there at the end, battling for second place and hoping for first? It was Vasser, of course, and although he missed on both counts, his late duel with Helio Castro-Neves was the best racing of the day, and his third-place finish was Toyota’s best in champ car racing. Will Toyota be his career restorer?

Talk about deja vu.

Winner Paul Tracy, who drove a Reynard-Honda, just as Vasser used to, ribbed Vasser a little, saying, “Jimmy wishes he had a Honda still.”

“Nope,” Vasser said coolly, “I’m quite happy with Toyota.”

The feeling was mutual.

Said Jim Aust, Toyota vice president of motorsports, “It’s been a long time coming for a podium finish [in the top three] but to get it here at our home track . . . makes it a little sweeter. You can see the progress we made but we need to keep working for that victory. Third is nice but we really want to be in the middle of the podium [where the winner stands to receive his trophy].”

Toyota already has been noticed. In the season opener at Homestead, Fla., Montoya sat on the pole and Vasser finished fourth. And if Sunday’s race was any indication, that first place Aust so desires may not be far off.

Vasser and Montoya qualified second and third, behind one Honda but ahead of many of them. Although Montoya had his problems--engine problems, Ganassi said--Vasser ran among the leaders all afternoon. And his late-race attempts to pass Castro-Neves for second were street racing at its best.

On Lap 75 of the 82-lap race, Vasser got a run on Castro-Neves, going outside, hoping to clear the Brazilian driver’s car and beat him into the first turn. He missed.

Next lap, same place, he tried again. Castro-Neves, driving a Honda- powered car, wouldn’t give up an inch of the inside line so, once again, Vasser tried the outside. He missed again.

Then, after a three-lap caution period, he was back at it. He missed twice more, then resigned himself to third, finishing less than a car length behind Castro-Neves.

“Helio did a good job of keeping his car under him,” Vasser said. “I knew he was trying to conserve his fuel and was on old tires, but I just couldn’t get a maneuver on him.

“It was fun [trying to make the pass] but it was frustrating too. I was determined to make that outside pass because I thought I could still catch Paul. Finally, I saw it just wasn’t going to work and I didn’t want to waste what I had.”

Tracy, at one time the hot young driver for Roger Penske’s then-dominant team, was asked what he thought about his day and Vasser’s, considering that other drivers have moved them off--excuse the expression--the fast track.

“Us old boys,” Tracy responded. “A lot of fat-cat team owners were writing us off and look at us now.”

Vasser was more diplomatic, but no less confident.

“I think you’re going to see a lot more of Jimmy Vasser on the podium this year,” he said.

“Toyota’s only going to get better. We get new advances in horsepower and driveability every time we hit the track. A Toyota victory is right around the corner.”

Considering Vasser’s background, that seems a reasonable prediction.