Victory No. 100 Sweet for Penske

Gil de Ferran of Brazil gave car owner Roger Penske his 100th Champ-car victory by holding off Mauricio Gugelmin in the CART Bosch Spark Plug Grand Prix on Saturday at Nazareth, Pa.

De Ferran defeated Gugelmin by .085 seconds for his fourth career victory.

Although Penske wore a cap that had the magic number on it, he said, “I was worrying about the race, I really wasn’t thinking about it being the 100th win.”

Penske, who got his first victory 29 years ago from the late Mark Donohue, hadn’t had a victory in three years and three days, a span of 54 races.

“We’ve had some ups and downs,” he said, understating the misfortunes of 1997-1999.

Last year was particularly difficult for Penske. He parted company with driver Al Unser Jr., rookie driver Gonzalo Rodriguez was killed practicing at Laguna Seca, and then Greg Moore, who had agreed to race for Penske this year, died in a crash at Fontana.

Penske changed drivers--employing Helio Castroneves to replace Moore, bagged the traditional Penske and part-time Lola chassis for the Reynard, switched from Mercedes to Honda power, went from Goodyear to Firestone tires and made Tim Cindich the new team manager.

In typical Penske fashion, he credited Moore and de Ferran with helping him get rolling on all the changes.

“I knew what I had to do,” Penske said. “We felt it was time for changes. Things just sort of fell into place.”

Saturday’s race was rescheduled after being snowed out seven weeks ago, making it a single-day event.

“I think that was the single biggest problem,” Gugelmin said. “Normally you get Friday and Saturday to lay some rubber down, so everybody got loose.”

That led to several crashes--the first on the first lap -- that hurt so many of the top contenders. Among them was polesitter Juan Montoya, who was hoping to make some history himself.

Montoya, who starts second today at Indianapolis, had hoped for a unique Memorial Day weekend sweep. He also wanted to give Toyota its first CART victory.

Montoya led the first 76 laps, lost the advantage on a slow pit stop and never regained it.

The series champion wound up fourth, running at the end for only the second time in five races this season.

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At Indianapolis, thousands of fans came out to get a final look at the field of Indianapolis 500 drivers before the race. And drivers met at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in an hourlong ceremony for a final round of instructions on safety and race rules.

Drivers presented “ER” star Anthony Edwards with a helmet signed by everyone who qualified. Edwards is driving the pace car that will lead off the race.

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Jeff Burton took advantage of a mistake by Mark Martin’s pit crew, a gamble from his own team and a wreck by Matt Kenseth near the finish to win the Carquest Auto Parts 300 stock car race at Concord, N.C.

The Busch Grand National victory was Burton’s second of the season and 12th of his career. Burton beat Martin, who had won three of the last four Carquest 300 races at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, by about one second.

Burton and Martin are Ford teammates, so the win broke a string of five consecutive Busch victories by Chevrolets.

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John Force topped Funny Car qualifying for the fifth time this season, leading the field for the NHRA’s Castrol Nationals at Texas Motorplex at Ennis.

Force, 51, powered his Ford Mustang to a quarter-mile run of 4.872 seconds at a top speed of 319.71 mph. The nine-time Funny Car champion is one victory away from tying NHRA Pro Stock great Bob Glidden’s career record for national-event victories of 85.