CART Contenders Try to Drive Home Their Points

After 19 races that have produced 10 winners, the FedEx CART champ car series comes down to Sunday’s season-ending Marlboro 500 at California Speedway, and five drivers still can win the $1-million champion’s bonus.

Gil de Ferran, latest in a long line of Roger Penske’s winning drivers, holds the lead but it is a precarious one. De Ferran is only five points ahead of Adrian Fernandez, last year’s Marlboro 500 winner.

Paul Tracy and rookie Kenny Brack are 19 points back, and Roberto Moreno, Fernandez’s teammate, is mathematically in the running but would need a near-miracle to make up the 22 points he is in arrears.

There are, at most, 22 points available, 20 for winning and one each for winning the pole on Saturday and leading the most laps on Sunday.

Realistically, the battle is between the Brazilian, de Ferran, in one of Penske’s Reynard-Hondas, and the Mexican, Fernandez, in Pat Patrick’s Reynard-Ford Cosworth. Still, past performances show that anything can happen. In the most recent race, in Australia, five of six contenders failed to score a point and Fernandez, by winning, vaulted from fifth to second.

“There is such an unpredictability to 500-mile races that it is impossible to think about anything except trying to win,” de Ferran said. “The competition in CART is so close that the unexpected can happen in any race. Look at what happened to most of the leaders in Australia. You just never know what might happen.”

In Australia, de Ferran and defending series champion Juan Montoya collided in the first turn of the first lap, knocking both out of the race and seriously tightening the points race.

“Certainly I have taken a lot of flak for that incident, but I think there has been a misunderstanding,” de Ferran said. “The belief is that I was trying to overtake Montoya when, as a matter of fact, I was trying to let him by. We just sort of ran out of room.

“I was probably half a car length ahead, but not enough to dive underneath so I tried to tuck in behind him going through the first left-hander. But we were so squeezed together we had nowhere to go. When his right rear wheel touched my left front, that was it. I tried to get out of his way, but I couldn’t.”

For de Ferran to win his first CART crown, he must finish ahead of Fernandez, or if Fernandez wins, de Ferran must finish second. After that, it gets more complicated. If Fernandez finishes third, fourth or fifth, de Ferran must finish within two places of him. If Fernandez finishes sixth, de Ferran must finish at least 10th, or if Fernandez finishes seventh, de Ferran must finish at least 12th.

Said Fernandez, “If we keep doing what we have been doing, we will be fine. I don’t put myself into the place where I worry about the championship. I look at it like another race, try to win it and at the end of the race we’ll see where we are. Whatever happens, happens.

“One thing is sure. Half of Mexico will be there.”

For Tracy or Brack to win, either must win the race while de Ferran finishes 12th or worse and collects no bonus points.

“I think we still have a chance,” Tracy said. “Obviously, we need a lot of good luck. Our plan is to go out and take control of the race and win it. That is what it will take to win the championship, and if we don’t win but win the race we still get a million bucks.”

The race, like the FedEx championship, will pay $1 million to the winner.

Said Brack, who won the Indy Racing League championship two years ago and the Indianapolis 500 last year before joining Team Rahal this season as a CART rookie:

“We can’t do it on our own. We need bad luck for Gil and Adrian. If that happens, what we can do is hope we win the race. If the cards fall our way, we can do both.

“All we can worry about is ourselves. Personally, if we won, it would give me a feeling of satisfaction knowing that our crew in our first year with a new driver was able to come together as a team and perform at a championship level.”

Moreno’s task is more direct. He must win the pole, the race and lead the most laps and de Ferran must fail to score any points.

Jimmy Vasser, the 1996 champion, is tied with Moreno but he cannot win the championship because even if he won the race, he would be tied with de Ferran and would lose on the tiebreaker--highest finishes.

Last year’s championship battle ended in a tie, Montoya winning a tiebreaker over Dario Franchitti because he had seven victories to three for the Scotsman. Montoya trailed by nine points before the Fontana finale last year, but when he finished fourth and Franchitti 10th, they were tied with 212 points.

Saturday’s qualifying, normally not too significant for a 500-mile race, will take on added importance because of its one-point bonus.

“Qualifying has no bearing on the race, but for us it is very important because we must get every point we can,” said Brack, who has never raced at California Speedway.

Fernandez started 13th last year. Pole-sitter Scott Pruett finished 22nd. In the 1997 inaugural 500, Mark Blundell won from the eighth position, and in 1998 Vasser started second and won.

PANKRATZ ON THE MOVE

Wally Pankratz has been chasing the U.S. Auto Club’s Western Midget series championship since 1985. In those 16 years, he has been in 376 races, won 16 of them and perennially been a championship contender--but he has never finished as No. 1.

Now, at 55, he is in position to win the elusive title. With three races remaining, the former Orange Coast College football star trails teenager Bobby Boone of Palmdale by 16 points. Danny Ebberts of Canyon Lake is also in the running, 19 points behind Pankratz. There are 72 points available in the three races.

“If experience means anything, I’m in good shape. I’m older than the two of them together,” said Pankratz, who lives in Orange. Boone and Ebberts are each 19.

“I’m hoping this is the year and I think my chances are really good because I have had good results on all the three tracks left, Perris, Bakersfield and Irwindale.”

The western regional series will be at Perris Auto Speedway this weekend, Bakersfield Speedway in Oildale on Nov. 18 and at Irwindale for the Turkey Night Grand Prix on Nov. 23.

Perris is a two-night event also featuring the Sprint Car Racing Assn. USAC midgets will qualify Friday for a 30-lap main event Saturday. The SCRA will have main events both nights.

Pankratz should have an advantage at Irwindale, where he is the Racing Training Center’s head instructor.

He finished second in the standings to Sleepy Tripp in 1992 and third four times, 1989 and 1993 behind Robby Flock, 1997 behind Ricky Shelton and 1998 behind Rick Hendrix.

In 24 races this year, Pankratz has not won but has finished second four times, at Perris, Bakersfield, Madera and Santa Maria.

LAST LAPS

The Orange Show Speedway in San Bernardino will end its season Saturday night with a street stock 100, stock pony 75, bomber stock twin 25s and a destruction derby. . . . In case you’re curious, Christopher Jongsma of Tipton and Curtis Tomczak of Murrieta were winners in the Farmers Fair & Expo’s 13th annual Demolition Derby last Sunday. More than 15,000 watched the mayhem.

An announcement that PPI Motorsports is dissolving its CART Champ Car racing program is expected this weekend, perhaps today, sources said Thursday.

Cal Wells III, who fielded a two-car racing team since 1996 that operated out of his Rancho Santa Margarita racing shop, could not be reached for comment Thursday, though the announcement would be in line with his previous comments about the program’s racing future.

Wells and his team are competing this weekend in Fontana at the Marlboro 500.

More than 250 entries have been received for the Tecate SCORE Baja 2000, a 1,727-mile desert odyssey that will crisscross the Mexican peninsula from Ensenada to Cabo San Lucas, starting Nov. 12. Johnny Campbell of San Clemente, on a Honda motorcycle, will be the first starter. About three hours later, Craig Corda of Calexico will be the first driver off in the featured Trophy Truck class. The winner is expected to finish in 35 to 36 hours.

Irwindale Speedway officials have designated the Turkey Night Midget Grand Prix race on Nov. 23 as “Cody Unser Night at Irwindale.” Cody, daughter of Shelley and Al Jr., has a rare spinal cord infection known as transverse myelitis, which has left her paralyzed below the waist. The 13-year-old Cody plans to be at the race.

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Staff writer Martin Henderson contributed to this story.