Las Vegas Vasser can't catch teammate Zanardi

Jimmy Vasser may have had the fastest car during the final practice session for the CART FedEx Championship Series Molson Indy in Toronto Sunday morning, but the Las Vegas resident was upstaged -- again -- by teammate Alex Zanardi once the green flag dropped.

Zanardi earned his fourth consecutive victory Sunday while Target/Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Vasser had to settle for third place after making contact with a stalled car late in the race.

It was Vasser's third podium finish of the season -- to go with a pair of wins -- and his tenth consecutive top-eight showing, moving him into second place in the series points battle.

"It was pretty uneventful in the first half of the race," Vasser said. "I lost my rear tires toward the end of the first stint so I came in and we made an adjustment and the car was pretty good."

That is, until race leader Dario Franchitti spun out in turn one on lap 79 and his car stalled in the middle of the track.

With Vasser running third, his right rear tire rolled over the nose of Franchitti's car. From then on, Vasser had no chance of catching the leaders.

"I saw the yellows but I was carrying too much speed on the concrete," Vasser said. "I couldn't make it to the inside, which is where I thought you needed to go.

"I ran over (Franchitti's) nose and after that I had a vibration. It was good to get two Target cars on the podium and move into second in the championship."

Henderson's Richie Hearn started 13th and finished seventh and Las Vegas resident Paul Tracy also was running in the top 10 until he and Adrian Fernandez made contact with four laps remaining. Tracy had to settle for a 14th-place finish.

Tracy ran as high as sixth in his Team KOOL Green Reynard/Honda. But he lost seven positions after getting caught up in teammate Franchitti's spin on lap 79.

"We had a car today that was definitely top-five material," Tracy said. "It was taking me quite a bit of time to get my tires up to temperature and I was getting passed on the restarts. You know it's just bad luck with what happened to Dario.

"The marshals weren't really giving me an indication of what was going on in turn one. When I got there, Dario was lying across the track sideways and I had nowhere to go. It's a frustrating day because Dario had the race locked up and we could have been in the top-five."

Two other local drivers also met with bad luck during the inaugural running of the Indy Racing League's Pep Boys 400K at Dover Downs International Speedway.

Davey Hamilton of Las Vegas battled electrical problems and finished fourth and Henderson's Sam Schmidt was involved in a single-car crash and took 17th.

"We qualified second and we had a great shot to win this race," Hamilton said. "Unfortunately, we had some problems with either the (electrical system) or it might have been a fuel pick-up problem.

"It put us a few laps down but my (crew) hung in there and at least we're third in points now."

Schmidt, who started 18th, brought out the third of eight yellow flags when he spun and hit the wall while exiting turn four.

"Something just broke," Schmidt said of his accident, one of six in the race. "We rolled out a little off the pace and never quite caught up. We knew there would be a lot of attrition so we were just trying to pace ourselves."

Only 10 of the 22 cars that started the race were running at the finish -- and only two on the lead lap -- as the IRL drivers learned firsthand why the bumpy track is called "The Monster Mile."

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