Race No. 19
Honda Indy
Surfer's Paradise
Gold Coast, Australia
October 15-17, 1999
| SpeedCenter Rearview Mirror: 1996 Pole Winner: Jimmy Vasser 1997 Pole Winner: Alex Zanardi 1998 Pole Winner: Dario Franchitti 1996 Race Winner: Jimmy Vasser 1997 Race Winner: Scott Pruett 1998 Race Winner: Alex Zanardi 1996 SpeedCenter Report 1997 SpeedCenter Report 1998 SpeedCenter Report |  |
By Greg Spotts
Imagine a FedEx DC-10 flying to Australia, packed to the gills with race cars, tires, toolboxes and electronics. Somewhere inside this cavernous plane, somewhere inside one of the identical plastic-wrapped cargo pallets lurks a unique metal item: an item coveted by two determined young men. Only one of them has the chance to leave Australia in possession of this precious item: that man is twenty-three year old rookie Juan Montoya and the object of his desire is the gleaming silver 1999 PPG Cup.
Juan Montoya has done it all this season, scoring seven pole positions and seven victories. Montoya has won on ovals, road courses and street circuits, in the sun and in the rain, and leads the series in victories, poles, laps led, miles completed, and championship points.
And yet, like a doppleganger, Dario Franchitti has stayed with Montoya all season. The twenty-six year old Franchitti has achieved only two victories and one pole, but his series-leading ten podium finishes have kept him within striking distance of the championship, a mere 13 points behind with only two races left to run.
A crucial error by Chip Ganassi at the last race in Houston left Montoya watching helplessly from the sidelines while Franchitti halved the points gap by finished second. Montoya needs to increase his lead by nine more points in order to clinch the championship in Australia. Clinching at Surfer's Paradise will be tough, as Team Kool Green has been outstanding this year on temporary street circuits, finishing 1-2 at Detroit, Toronto and Houston. Montoya does not want the championship battle to continue at Fontana, a superspeedway where the Handford Device can bunch up the field for a wild duel in the final ten laps.
Franchitti's teammate Paul Tracy sits third in the points and heads to Australia with his own agenda. Tracy still has an outside chance of finishing the season second in the points, but only if he scores podium finishes in both races and Franchitti suffers catastrophic failure. Tracy is anxious to keep fourth-place Michael Andretti in his rear view mirror, and is unlikely to heed either direct or implied pressure from the team to sacrifice his own interests for Franchitti's championship.
Meanwhile, the series at large is churning with major developments that will chance the face of CART in the year 2000. With Scott Pruett NASCAR-bound and Al Unser Jr. likely to defect to the IRL, the traditional CART driver demographic of Americans in their 30's and 40's has shifted to a group of 22-35 year old Canadians, Europeans and Latin Americans. Only one American driver, Michael Andretti, is securely in place at a competitive team for next year. Jimmy Vasser has a multi-year contract with Chip Ganassi but has enjoyed neither good results nor harmonious relations with his owner. Bryan Herta, Alex Barron, and PJ Jones have all been ousted from their rides this year, while Richie Hearn and Robby Gordon are stuck with the still lagging Toyota powerplant. With Michael Andretti likely to be the oldest driver in the series next year, young Americans look to be in short supply.
The breakdown in re-unification discussions with Tony George means CART will be going it alone in the foreseeable future, and the first test facing CART since the negotiations ended will be rescuing the troubled Hawaiian Super Prix. In the meantime, the silly-season has become a chaotic free-for-all, with Penske changing drivers, chassis, and engine, Arciero-Wells likely to split up, Walker losing sponsor and driver, AAR staffing up without an announced sponsor, Ganassi contemplating an additional separate team, and super-engineer Mo Nunn negotiating with Mercedes about a factory effort.
Keep your seatbelts fastened. The action on and off the track is likely to reach a fever pitch by the final race at Fontana, which is schedule for, you guessed it, Halloween.