Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: Fittipaldi tests well at Sebring in prep for Long Beach

Wednesday, March 27, 2002 | 10:25 a.m.

Brian Hilderbrand covers motor sports for the Las Vegas Sun. His motor sports notebook appears Friday. He can be reached at bh@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4089.

Christian Fittipaldi had to delay his 2002 NASCAR Busch Series debut last weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway so he could take part in a two-day test for his Newman/Haas Racing CART team at Sebring International Raceway. It proved to be a wise choice for the Brazilian, who was among the fastest of the drivers who tested on the 1.65-mile road course in preparation for the April 14 Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.

"The test went very well," Fittipaldi said. "It was time well spent. The plan is to show the results in Long Beach. It's an important race for Toyota as well as my new sponsor Eli Lilly, Chevron and CART as well."

Fittipaldi had been scheduled to run his first of six Busch races this season for Innovative Motorsports on Saturday at Bristol but had to postpone his season debut until May 3 at Richmond International Raceway to take part in the CART test.

"We moved heaven and earth to schedule the test so that Christian could race in Bristol (last) weekend but no tracks were available that suited the criteria we needed to test on and in the timeline we had available," said Brian Lisles, Newman/Haas Racing general manager.

Team Rahal's Michel Jourdain Jr. posted the fastest lap of the two-day test session at Sebring at 50.9 seconds.

After competing in last weekend's IRL race at California Speedway, the Team Rahal pilot is in Florida today wrapping up a two-day test at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Next week, Vasser will spend two days in Indianapolis testing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in preparation for the Indy 500.

Vasser finished ninth in Sunday's Yamaha Indy 400 in Fontana -- a race he described as a "successful fact-finding" mission.

"It was definitely worth the trip out to California for our team," Vasser said. "We came to learn and that's what we did. We loaded the car back on the truck in one piece but most importantly we learned that there are a few areas that we need to address.

"It is better to learn that at Fontana than at Indy. Our Miller Lite team had great pit stops and the car ran all day; that was one of our goals when we came here. Now we'll go to Indy in another week and see if we can learn a little bit more."

Dr. Henry Bock, director of medical services for the Indy Racing League, said Buhl would be examined again before he would be cleared to drive, but Bock expects Buhl will compete in the next IRL race at Nazareth Speedway on April 21.

Petty said last weekend that Andretti needs to focus on the team's Winston Cup effort rather than trying to run the Indy 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 in Charlotte on the same day. In 1994, Andretti became the first driver to compete in both races on the same day.

"His name and Indy are synonymous and I know he'd like to get back to it," Petty said. "But it's got to be the right time for everyone, not just the right time for John. Right now it's not the right time for us."

Kinser, who led wire-to-wire in the 25-lap race for his first victory of the season, leads defending WoO champion Danny Lasoski by four points. Steve Kinser, who held the points lead going into the weekend, finished fourth Sunday and slipped to third in the points.