Spectacular race brings mixed reaction from drivers

By MIKE HARRIS

AP Motorsports Writer

No Champ car race had been as competitive as the U.S. 500. The 62 lead changes in 250 laps at Michigan Speedway more than doubled the previous CART record of 27.

The event was marred by tragedy when a wheel and other debris from a crash went into the stands, killing three people and injuring six others.

On the track, the drivers raced just feet apart for most of the event's 500 miles on Sunday. Not everyone enjoyed the competition, however.

Alex Zanardi, the defending CART FedEx Series champion and current points leader, found the close racing a nuisance. The Italian, reared in a society that views Formula One's technically-oriented road racing as the world's best, was unimpressed by close work on a 2-mile, high-banked oval.

"I don't think you can call that racing," he said. "That was just a show. It was just drafting."

That it was, thanks to a new aerodynamic piece, called the Handford Device, on the rear wing of the open-wheel cars. The Handford turns the wing into a big box that cuts a huge hole in the air as the cars reach speeds of more than 200 mph.

It was designed to slow the cars in the interest of safety, adding drag to the rear wing and making them tougher to handle in the corners. Speeds were down, from the mid-230s last year to the mid-220s on Sunday.

But the new wing, to be used for now only at Michigan and California - the two superspeedways on the CART schedule - also allows the 1,600-pound Champ cars to draft in the fashion of the 3,400-pound NASCAR machines.

"This new wing stirs up the air so much when a bunch of cars are out there that you can be coming out of turn four and be getting drafting help from a car in turn one," said seventh-place finisher Bobby Rahal.

Most of the drivers looked at the race from a far-less technical point of view than Zanardi. In fact, most of them enjoyed the close competition.

"What a hairy race," said Michael Andretti, who finished sixth. "I was a little worried about it because we were racing wheel-to-wheel for 400-plus miles (when the track wasn't under yellow flags). But everyone was giving each other room.

"It was some of the best racing I've seen. The draft had a huge effect on the race. It was like a NASCAR race without bumpers."

Fifth-place finisher Richie Hearn also enjoyed himself.

"This was the best race I've ever been in," he said.

"What a race," said fourth-place finisher Scott Pruett. "I had a blast. That was a good, hard, competitive, close race. Everybody did their job."

Only failure to have the car set up properly seemed to separate the contenders from the balance of the field.

Dario Franchitti lost a couple of laps early because of handling, and wound up 21st after his engine blew on lap 214. Still, he was impressed.

"When we finally figured it out, once we got the car settled down, it was great racing out there," Franchitti said. "I don't know what it looked like from the stands, but inside the car it was fun and close racing."

In 1996, before the Handford Device, Zanardi and Mark Blundell were the only drivers on the lead lap at the end, with Zanardi winning by 31.737 seconds - nearly a full lap. That was a fairly typical finish for a 500-mile open-wheel event.

With the new wing, 10 drivers were on the lead lap at the finish, and Greg Moore had to pass both Zanardi and Jimmy Vasser in the final two laps before winning over Vasser by just a quarter of a second.

"You know, we joked around all weekend about how you didn't want to be leading at the white flag (the start of the last lap)," Vasser said. "But that's exactly what happened in this race.

"At the end, when I passed Greg, I thought I had enough cushion to see out the last lap. But he got a great run on me and blasted past going into (turn) one. That was the ball game in this one."

Now CART officials must assess the results of the race and determine if there will be any changes to the cars or to the Handford Device itself before the season-ending race on California's 2-mile oval on Nov. 1.

There were four one-car crashes in the race, all of them apparently the result of one car taking the air off the front end of another in moving up or down the banked track. That's the downside of the new wing.

"We've got to look at it closely," said car owner Derrike Walker, a member of the CART rules committee. "It was great racing, but there's still some work to do."

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