TRIUMPHANT TRIUMVIRATE

The Captain, the Professor and the Fence Climber make a formidable lineup for Team Penske in defense of the CART FedEx championship won last year by Gil de Ferran, a.k.a. the Professor.

“We made all our changes last year and ended up winning the championship and this year we’re about the only team that didn’t make any changes, so I would say we’re in great shape to win again,” said Roger Penske, the Captain.

Helio Castroneves, the Fence Climber, expects to be De Ferran’s main competition after winning three races last year and introducing his victory trademark, climbing a fence in front of the main grandstand after taking the checkered flag.

All three are looking to Sunday’s Long Beach Grand Prix with anticipation. Penske has won there twice, with Paul Tracy in 1993 and Al Unser Jr. in 1995;

De Ferran has been fastest qualifier three of the last five races and last year led the most laps before finishing seventh after the nosecone of his car was damaged on a restart, and Castroneves finished second last year, only three seconds behind Tracy in a Team Green car.

Before the 2000 season--after two winless years--Penske dropped Unser, his longtime lead driver, and signed the Brazilians, De Ferran and Castroneves; switched chassis from Penske to Reynard, changed engines from Mercedes-Benz to Honda, changed tires from Goodyear to Firestone and named a new president, Tim Cindric.

Rick Mears, four-time Indianapolis 500 winner, remained as the team’s advisor.

The Penske dynasty claimed not only the CART crown but also Penske’s 100th Indy/champ car victory when De Ferran won at Nazareth, Pa. Team Penske’s 10 titles in 34 years, along with 11 Indianapolis 500 poles and 10 Indy wins, helped put it in the same league with the New York Yankees, Boston Celtics and Montreal Canadiens as great franchises in sports.

Last year, De Ferran won at Portland, Ore., and Nazareth, scored points in 15 of 20 races and set a world closed-course qualifying record of 241.428 mph at California Speedway for the Marlboro 500. Castroneves won races at Detroit, Mid-Ohio and Laguna Seca.

“This team worked very hard last year to find the consistency to run up front, to keep out of trouble and finish races,” De Ferran said. “We know how to do that now, so that’s our objective again this year.

“As far as preparation is concerned, it is no different than it was before we won the championship. Lots of training and testing. It’s essentially back to Square 1 in that I don’t expect anyone to give me any special privileges.”

Although De Ferran was injured twice in preseason testing, he recovered to finish second to fellow Brazilian Cristiano da Matta in the CART season opener in Monterrey, Mexico. Castroneves was eighth.

As evidence of De Ferran’s consistency, the runner-up result was his seventh top-six performance in his last nine CART races on permanent road courses.

De Ferran, 33, says winning the championship, Penske’s 10th, in his first season with the team was a lifetime dream come true.

“It was extremely emotional for me because it was the first time in a long time where I felt I could just relax and let everything go,” he said. “It was the culmination of a lifetime of work. All of the feelings and memories, the good things from the past and the sacrifices made started rushing through my head.

“Driving for Team Penske is more than I expected. From a technical and professional standpoint, the team’s reputation precedes itself. I knew I was joining a good team on those measures and from the standpoint of friendliness, it really doesn’t come across from the outside how warm everyone is.”

Racing teammates are not always known for their friendliness to one another, but even though De Ferran is eight years older than Castroneves, they remain cordial.

“Even though we have very different personalities and Helio is so much younger, we get along extremely well and I really enjoy his company,” De Ferran said. “Sometimes we’ll have dinner with our families during race weekend and occasionally we see each other socially in Florida.”

De Ferran lives in Fort Lauderdale with his wife, Angela, and their children, Anna Elizabeth, 6, and Luke, 4, and seldom returns to Brazil. Castroneves, who is single, lives in Miami but gets home to Sao Paulo, Brazil, as often as possible.

“As far as the team is concerned, everything is 50-50,” said De Ferran. “There is no No. 1 or No. 2. We have separate race engineers, but our driving styles, different as we are, are quite similar, which makes it much easier to set up our cars.”

Although De Ferran studied mechanical engineering for three years in Brazil before leaving for England in 1988 to further his racing career, he says he is still puzzled as to why fellow drivers call him the Professor.

“I don’t know why, because the role of a professor is to teach and I’m not really here to teach anyone,” he said. “I do think it is meant to be a flattering label. It may actually refer to what some people consider my analytical approach to racing.”

It was Castroneves’ excitable approach to racing that made him a fence climber. The ritual started innocently enough at Detroit, after he’d scored his first CART win on the tight Belle Isle street circuit.

Instead of going to the winner’s circle, he stopped at the start-finish line, got out of his car, then realized that he was in the wrong place. In his excitement, he ran over to the fence in front of the main grandstand, climbed up a few feet and shook his fist in victory before jumping down and running to the winner’s circle.

It was a spontaneous moment, but it received so much attention that when he won at Mid-Ohio and Laguna Seca, he made climbing the fence his trademark.

Now he wants to repeat the fun at Long Beach.

“I had a fantastic race at Long Beach last year and had my first podium finish of the season,” he said. “I learned a lot about fuel strategy for the race that should help me this week. I like Long Beach for many reasons. It’s a street race with a good place to pass because there’s a long straightaway down Shoreline Drive where you don’t have to take a chance like at many street circuits.

“There’s no doubt that you can pass with confidence under braking at the end of the straight. And the atmosphere at Long Beach is really nice. It’s a beautiful place, the fans are very enthusiastic, and plenty of Hollywood celebrities always turn out for the race, which makes for more fun for everybody.”

At the season-ending awards banquet, Castroneves won the inaugural Greg Moore Legacy Award as the driver who best typified Moore’s legacy as an outstanding driver and dynamic personality in the CART community.

Winning the 82-lap, 161-mile race Sunday is the primary objective, but forDe Ferran the most enjoyment will come Saturday when CART drivers qualify.

“I like qualifying most because to me it is the purest form of driving,” he said. “You go as fast as you can without making any compromises for fuel economy or longevity. You just go for it.

“During the race, I’m not thinking about driving per se, that’s second nature. I’m strategizing, thinking about saving the tires, saving the brakes, should I go full blast, how do I get by the guy ahead of me, should I pass him now or wait, things like that.

“Of course, it’s an animalistic attraction in a way. There’s nothing like having 900 horsepower at your disposal.”

Spoken like a true professor.