Tell that to Team Penske.
Roger's wizards put Gil de Ferran on the pole - in his back up car since he'd parked his original Honda upside down in a sand trap during Saturday's qualifying - and sat Helio Castroneves along side him.
The Team Penske pair jumped into the lead at the green flag and left the rest of the field in the dust - and in a fog of silly season rumors swirling around Michael Andretti, Jimmy Vasser and others claiming free agent status or losing their rides.
The two Penske cars remained untouchable the rest of the day - at least on the track.
It became Question F-1-- that is, who could pass whom in the pits.
Mauricio Gugilmen and Juan Montoya gave announcers Paul Page and Parker Johnstone something concrete to discuss by taking excursions into the sand traps. Montoya's, no surprise, came from over-aggressive driving while Mauricio, it later developed, got a shove from Roberto Moreno.
Team Penske, de Ferran in the lead, continued to dominate through the first pit stop, but de Ferran lost the lead to Castroneves when Helio's crew got the car out one second quicker. That one second translated to five on the track, and Castroneves built on that lead every lap.
Montoya took another off-course run, this time through the grass. At this point if you asked if had taken too much of a beating to be able to score some points, your answer would have come quickly. The Colombian shortly thereafter mis-timed his pit stop and ran out of fuel on the opposite side of the course from the pits, ending his day.
Dario Franchitti had run up front - but not really competitive with the Penske cars - early on before developing electronic troubles. He was in and out of the pits and dropped back a couple of laps before things were sorted out. He then threw it all away - and took out a lead-lap contender in the process - by flubbing a pass attempt on Jimmy Vasser.
That mix up brought out only a corner yellow, but Shinji Nakano soon provided the full-course caution necessary to bunch up the cars for a sprint to the finish. He spun into the grass close enough to the course to bring out the yellow flag.
