De Ferran Supplies Another Penske Win

Gil de Ferran gave Roger Penske’s team its third victory in the last four CART races, holding off Roberto Moreno on Sunday to win the Freightliner/G.I. Joe’s 200 at Portland, Ore.

This is the same team that went just over three years without a victory until De Ferran broke through in May in Nazareth, Pa., finally giving Penske his 100th open-wheel win.

Helio Castroneves, also new to the Penske operation this year, added another win on June 18 in Detroit, and he and De Ferran started from the front row Sunday and kept the battle mostly to themselves until the waning moments of the race.

Castroneves led 85 of the 112 laps on the 1.969-mile, 12-turn road course at Portland International Raceway, but De Ferran was dogging the rear of his Honda-powered Reynard most of the way.

Castroneves was under a second ahead of De Ferran when the latter made his second stop on lap 71, getting out of the pits in just 9.3 seconds. Castroneves came in a little later and, taking on more fuel, wound up taking 13.6 seconds. He came out behind De Ferran on the track.

Castroneves developed gearbox problems late in the race and also ran out of fuel as he neared the finish line. He finished seventh.

De Ferran, who won here last year while driving for Derrick Walker, got another break when Moreno’s crew made a costly error while fueling his car on his last pit stop.

Moreno, easily getting the best mileage among the leaders, made only two fuel stops in the race lengthened from 98 laps last year. The strategy looked perfect until the fueler on his Patrick Racing car failed to open the valve and it took about five seconds too long to get the tank filled with methanol when he pitted for the final time on lap 75.

De Ferran had to make one more quick stop for a splash of fuel on lap 89 and raced back onto the track just ahead of Moreno, almost ensuring the fifth victory of his career.

De Ferran beat Moreno by 2.625 seconds--about 20 car-lengths.

“Roger called a fantastic race,” De Ferran said. “In the beginning of the race I had quite a bit of oversteer in the car, so I kind of took it easy, trying to save fuel and the tires. Then they made a change in the first stop; the car became better. And then on the second stop, the car was just fantastic.”

Defending series champion Juan Montoya had his car clipped in a multicar melee on the first lap and later went out of the race because of engine failure.

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Ron Fellows led 35 of 82 laps to win the NASCAR Busch Grand National Series Lysol 200 at Watkins Glen, N.Y., for the second time in three years.

Fellows beat another road-racer, Butch Leitzinger, by .901 seconds.

Fellows, the pole-sitter, won in 1998 and was second last year.