Up for grabs

Friday, Oct. 27, 2000 | 10:26 a.m.

FONTANA, Calif. -- Sunday's Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) season finale at California Speedway officially is known as the Marlboro 500 Presented by Toyota.

But that's only because "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" was taken.

Five drivers are eligible to win a $1 million bonus for capturing the season-long points championship while any of the 26 drivers in the field can earn $1 million for winning the race.

Although the race purse is the largest on the 20-race CART circuit, all attention will be focused on the most wide-open championship battle in CART history.

Gil de Ferran leads the championship by a narrow five-point margin over Adrian Fernandez; Las Vegan Paul Tracy and Kenny Brack are 19 points back in third place and Roberto Moreno is fifth, 22 points behind de Ferran.

With a maximum of 22 points available to the race winner (20 points for the win, one for capturing the pole and one for leading the most laps), only Moreno is a long shot to claim the championship.

But that doesn't mean the other four title contenders are breathing any easier going into the 500-mile race on the 2-mile oval.

Not even the front-running de Ferran.

"We're in a good position to fight for the championship," de Ferran said. "At this point, I'm taking nothing for granted. Still, I think anything is possible, as we showed in Australia, much to our own demise."

De Ferran had an opportunity to pad his 19-point lead two weeks ago in Australia, but was taken out of the race after a first-lap accident with Juan Montoya.

Tracy also had an opportunity to close the gap on de Ferran in Australia, but was involved in a late-race accident and earned no points toward the championship. Now, the Summerlin resident acknowledged he will need some help this weekend if he is to win his first CART title.

"I think that we still have a chance," said Tracy, who leads the five championship contenders with three wins this season. "We are 19 back, which still makes it mathematically possible, (but) it's going to be difficult. We have to have a lot of good luck, and a lot of good fortune.

"But, you know, this is a race where we've got to go out and try to take control and win it, and that's what it is going to take to win the championship and, also, win the $1 million dollars for the race. There's $2 million on the line."

Like Tracy, Brack must also have some help from those drivers ahead of him in the standings.

"I think it's possible to win the championship, but the sad thing is we can't do it on our own," Brack said. "We're not in a situation where we can win it on our own; we need some bad luck for Gil and probably Adrian, too.

"But I think that what we can do is go to Fontana and try to do the best we can in the race and hopefully win the race and if the cards fall our way all the way, we'll be looking pretty good in the championship in the end."

Fernandez, de Ferran's closest pursuer, won last year's race at Fontana, which was marred by the death of rising star Greg Moore. Although any mistakes in Sunday's race could wind up costing him a million dollars, Fernandez said he isn't approaching this race differently than any other.

"I'm not putting to myself or to the team more pressure than we should have," Fernandez said. "It's another race and whatever happens, happens.

"We have been very consistent and I feel that if we can keep doing what we've been doing, we should be fine. We have had good success in these races in the past and that's how we are going to approach it this weekend."

De Ferran said his approach to the race will be similar.

"There is a lot at stake at this particular race," de Ferran said. "There's the race itself, which pays very well, and the championship, which also pays very well. I think also my highest priority is the championship.

"Having said that, you know, 500-mile races are notoriously unpredictable and hard to plan out before you go into it. So I think we'll just go into it in a normal fashion, with the usual 500-mile strategy and see how things develop as the race goes on."

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