The winner started the race from third position behind rookie wonder Juan Montoya, who achieved his third pole position in only eight career starts. Sharing the front row with Montoya was Helio Castro-Neves, who was delighted by the prospect of being "the hunter" of Montoya once again.

The race started amid a gentle drizzle. Castro-Neves immediately pounced on his target, stealing the lead from Montoya in the opening turn. The pair of twenty-three year old drivers opened up a several second lead on de Ferran, and the race appeared to be shaping up as a rematch of the duel staged at Nazareth in early May.

Castro-Neves led the entire first segment, but began to lose positions almost immediately after the first round of pit stops and was forced to pit again for repairs. As his mechanics scurried about swapping engine electronics, Castro-Neves was visibly distraught, rubbing his eyes with his orange driving gloves as the race slipped away. He finally retired on lap 40, unable to solve the electrical problem in his Mercedes engine.

No longer concerned by the pursuit of the fiery Castro-Neves, Montoya quickly built a twelve second lead over de Ferran, who was attempting to save fuel. Richie Hearn's spin in turn one brought out a yellow flag on lap 46. As the field prepared for the green flag on lap 50, Montoya led de Ferran, Paul Tracy, Bryan Herta and Adrian Fernandez around the final turn. The crowd roared as Montoya spun in a cloud of tire smoke coming onto the main straightaway, was passed by Gil de Ferran and Paul Tracy, recovered the spin, hit the accelerator and rocketed past Tracy back into second place before the end of the main straight. De Ferran, who performed a similar trick for the crowd at the start of the Motegi race, described his front row seat on Montoya's maneuver:

"We were in second gear. As soon as he nailed it I saw his car step out. Which way is he gonna go? When I saw his wheels spinning quite hard I knew that he was going in. I know that's what happens from personal experience, [laughs.] So I went around the outside of him. It was a close call but not that close."

A second restart was attempted on lap 54, and the crowd went wild for the lead-foot Montoya once again, as he dragged down the front straight with de Ferran and retook the lead in the first turn. Just three laps later, PJ Jones spun in the gravel pit in turn one and stalled, causing another yellow, which brought the top fourteen cars in for a second fuel stop a bit earlier than they had planned for a two stop race.

Montoya's "boys" appeared to be executing another efficient pit stop, but released the car off the jacks before the left front wheel was properly secured. Owner Chip Ganassi calmly announced over the radio "it's got to go up" and the car popped up again for a brief second as the wheel was fully installed. The jack-in-the-box pit stop cost Montoya a precious four seconds, and perhaps the race, as de Ferran emerged from the pits in the lead. The new leader was followed by Montoya, Tracy, Franchitti, Fernandez, Vasser, Papis, Herta and Moore.

At this point the action shifted from the racecourse to the radio scanner, as a Greek chorus of naysayers counseled the disobedient drivers to save fuel, turn down the mixture, go light on the accelerator, and short shift. Drivers who are handsomely paid to drive at superhuman speed were being scolded for doing just that. Montoya described his reaction to the orders to slow down: "Every time you were going by, they were saying 'you must save more fuel.' You're going down the straight half throttle and they're saying 'you gotta save more fuel.' Jesus!"

Franchitti explained the cat-and-mouse action between the handcuffed points-leaders. "It was a fuel saving race after the last pit stop. Juan and myself were playing this kind of game where he would accelerate and I would accelerate, then he would back off and I would back off…what I was planning was to catch him unawares, turn the thing up and go blasting by, but he was keeping an eye on his mirrors and would catch me just in time."

The leader de Ferran, however, had been having trouble making the necessary mileage throughout the race. "We were always trying to make two stops. For some reason we were not getting particularly good fuel mileage in relation to everybody else.…When we stopped with 37 laps to go, we knew it was going to be extremely tight… Five or six laps into the run I really wasn't getting anywhere near the fuel number I needed to get, and Derrick said forget it, this is not going to work."

Owner Derrick Walker, who has worked for some of the greatest minds in auto racing including Roger Penske and Bernie Ecclestone, came up with a unique idea, so simple that it just might work: "We needed to do the fuel economy run with the rest of the pack, or just go for it and try and pull out a lead and do a quick stop. That was the only strategy we had left. The competition's so close, it comes down to a little bit of strategy. You either take a chance or you don't."

De Ferran, like any man with racing in his blood, was thrilled to get the go-ahead to move the fuel selector to the setting for maximum power, and depart from the pack like the Enterprise going into Hyperspace. "Throughout my career, I always felt that leading the race was something I did well, to set some sort of pace. I don't feel I need somebody in front of me or behind me to either harass me or have a reference… When Derrick said to me OK you're just gonna push I knew everything I needed to do. That was fun, it reminded me of old days."

De Ferran's lead grew exponentially over the next fifteen laps, going from 3.5 seconds at lap 70 to 22.5 seconds on lap 85. Team managers up and down the pit lane were nervously pacing, muttering to anyone who would listen that "de Ferran has to come in. He just has to." And on lap 90 the leader did indeed turn onto pit lane as the skies began to clear. But like the Grinch, de Ferran packed up the goodies in his bag and departed the pits with nary a toy in sight; the strategists were agape as de Ferran made a five second splash-and-go and calmly reassumed the lead. De Ferran "coasted" the final eight laps and won the race by a margin of 4.393 seconds over Montoya, who was followed by Franchitti, Fernandez, Tracy, and Herta. De Ferran's win was Goodyear's first since last year's season opener, and the first for Walker Racing since Robby Gordon's victory in Detroit in 1995.

Notes:1) The podium finishers at Portland represent the points-leaders as well. Montoya still leads with 90, followed by Franchitti with 85, de Ferran with 71, Moore with 69, Fernandez with 65, Michael Andretti (whose race was blown by another stall in the pits) with 64, and Christian Fittipaldi with 61.

2) Honda enjoyed a rare podium sweep at Portland. The only other such sweep by Honda was at Houston last year. Reynard had an excellent day as well, holding every one of the top 15 positions except the two Swifts prepared by Newman Haas. De Ferran's average speed of 107.457 miles per hour broke the race record set by Alex Zanardi last year.

3) Dario Franchitti had an excellent race after suffering from an embarrassing miscue on Saturday. Franchitti developed a major handling problem in the final minutes of qualifying, the result of a left rear tire that was mounted in the wrong rolling direction by Firestone's technicians. Franchitti started the race in 12th, was 8th by the end of the first lap, and found himself on teammate Paul Tracy's tail in fourth position after the second round of pit stops. Tracy was warned over the radio by owner Barry Green that CART officials were considering issuing a blocking violation, and politely allowed his teammate to pass on lap 67. Dario described the situation as follows:

"I was tempted to radio in and say, well would it be OK [to pass Tracy], because I was a lot quicker. Paul was trying to get mileage and I was managing to get better mileage. I think basically I was running behind him, he was sort of drafting me up the track helping the fuel mileage. I had a bit more, he was backing up on the straight and it was a very clean pass. We discussed a lot after what happened at St Louis how we could stop that from happening again and I think it worked very well today. If it had been a similar situation but the other way around, if Paul was quicker than me he would have gone straight past, it wouldn't have been a problem." Only time will tell if championship contender Franchitti will be as considerate to Tracy in the same situation with precious points on the line.