NAZARETH, PA ROUND4

The 1998 FedEx Championship Series

ROUND 4 - Nazareth, PA

TEAM GANASSI 1-2 AT NAZARETH

Target/Chip Ganassi Racing teammates Jimmy Vasser and Alex Zanardi finished one-two in the rain-delayed CART FedEx Championship Series race at Nazareth, Pennsylvania.

In so doing, they achieved a goal they had been chasing through the past two championship-winning seasons. And that was to win a race on one of the short, one-mile ovals.

With the retirement of then-points leader Adrian Fernandez on the first lap, Greg Moore had a great chance to establish a lead in the points standings, and he took advantage of it with a smart and steady drive to third place.

Moore had started the race on the outside front row, after his teammate Patrick Carpentier had stolen the quickest qualifying time away from him and, incidentally, the valuable one point that goes with it.

But Carpentier had nothing but misfortune in the race, with the problems his crew had refueling his car compounded by two stop-and-go penalties for a pit lane speed violation and for running over an air hose in his pit.

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It looked like Michael Andretti would be the one to beat, as he ran comfortably up front until one of the numerous race restarts, when he got on the throttle too hard and too soon and spun into the wall.

The last caution left but five laps in the race, with Moore chasing Zanardi. Unfortunately for Moore, he had to deal with some traffic in his way. "At the end, I couldn't get by Bryan Herta," who Moore described in his television interview after the race as an idiot.

"He let Alex Zanardi by, but he didn't let me by. Alex and I could have had a good race to the finish."

In any case, Moore heads to the next race in Brazil with the points lead, albeit a slim one, 51-50 over Zanardi. With four top-six finishes in the first four races, Moore is working his game plan to perfection.