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It was hot in Houston -- what's new, right? -- and the quarters were cramped.
Maybe that was behind the subject of the discussion by Parker Johnstone and Paul Page. Yep, tight corners and temperatures in the 90s might make Chip Ganassi -- or members of his team -- snap off a subtle accusation that the suddenly-dominate Penske Team has a secret and illegal traction control device. Maybe it's time to line up the computer geeks and sweat it out of them. It'd been easy in Houston. But it was Team Green that first lost its cool. Dario Franchitti richocheted off the wall in one of the initial turns in the 1st lap and didn't learn he'd broken his front suspension until he went straight at the next left. The extremely tight street course caused another incident early on when Memo Gidley drove up Max Papis' rear wheel when Max's car went dead in the water. All that action bothered neither Team Penske nor Team Target Chip Ganassi. Helio Castroneves and Juan Montoya left the crashes in their rear view mirrors and began to dice hard for position after first two cautions. Paul Tracy had moved up quickly from 9th to 5th by the time of the first caution, and he continued to hang there as the field spreaded out. Most of the teams were on a single-stop pit-plan, with many thinking about a splash-and-go toward the end, but the early caution laps allowed a bit of play-on-strategy. The field began pitting right at lap 50 - the race set for 100 - but that didn't include Roberto Moreno and Adrian Fernandez, who were running well back in the field at the time of the early cautions and pitted then. That early stop proved profitable, for they found themselves in 2nd and 7th. Tracy moved up a slot during the pit sequence, standing on it and not letting Helio Castroneves bluff him out of position despite exiting the pits simultaneously, but again it was Team Penske and de Ferran who seemed to have a lock on the day. Gil soon stretched out a 9 second lead, driving smoothly, with Tracy and Castroneves hanging back and conserving fuel. Tarso Marques then stopped on course, thanks to a broken gearbox, and de Ferran headed for the pits.
The copyright of the article Thanks. I Needed That. in CART Auto Racing is owned by . Permission to republish Thanks. I Needed That. in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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