CART MARLBORO 500: DA MATTA BY A NOSE CONE BRAZILIAN ENDS CART SEASON WITH SECOND CONSECUTIVE WIN.

Byline: Keith Lair Staff Writer

FONTANA - Cristiano da Matta rolled the CART dice Sunday and won $1 million and the Marlboro 500, which should have been called the Fontana 440 crap shoot.

In a wild, crazy race, shortened by 30 laps because of impending darkness, da Matta held off a charging Max Papis to win by seven-thousandths of a second. There was a CART-record 73 lead changes and record 19 cars that led at least one lap.

How close was the finish, which actually came on the 216th lap?

``I'm not sure he won it,'' Papis said. ``I still don't know how I lost the race. It was very close. I still want to look at the video. There is still a question mark.''

``I knew it was close,'' said da Matta, who finished the season with back-to-back victories, winning last week in Australia.

Papis was challenging da Matta for the lead on lap 216 when Scott Dixon, running in fifth place, got into the marbles and hit the wall in turn 4. The yellow flag flew with Da Matta holding a lead of less than the front of the car's cone - at most, a foot - ahead of Papis. He earned $1 million for the season-ending victory.

``I thought a big battle was coming,'' Brazilian da Matta said. ``But you need to be lucky at the right place at the right time.''

Up to the final green lap, the battle was not for the lead, but to try and stay out of the lead, as teams tried to use drafts to conserve fuel mileage.

``Every lap, they were screaming at me to get out of the lead,'' da Matta said. ``Finally, I told them, `Shut up.' No one wanted to lead. I kept trading (the lead) with Max and Adrian Fernandez. The car was that good that I could not drop back into the pack.''

The pack made for wild racing and the best race ever at California Speedway, which had a crowd of about 70,000, about 30 percent fewer than last year's event. Cars were running, at times, three and four wide.

The 73 lead changes was 14 more than last year's race, won by da Matta's teammate, Christian Fittipaldi. It was 11 more than the previous record, set at Michigan Speedway in 1998. It nearly eclipsed the NASCAR record of 75 lead changes, set at Talladega Superspeedway in 1984.

How wild was it? At one point, the lead changed hands for 13 consecutive laps. At what should have been the halfway point, lap 125, there had been 53 lead changes. But because of early-morning drizzle, which delayed the start of the race by an hour, impending darkness and blown motors began to come into play.

Mauricio Gugelmin's engine let loose on lap 154. During the long caution period, race officials shortened the event by 20 laps. Then it was Roberto Moreno's turn. On the restart, with 34 laps to go, Fernandez spun his cold tires right into the wall. Suddenly the race was down to 220 laps.

That put Papis at a disadvantage. The Italian, who was in his last ride with Team Rahal, had pitted during the caution, expecting a 28-lap final shootout instead of the eventual 18 laps.

``We were planning our strategy for the last 10 laps, but we never got there,'' Papis said. ``Nobody knew we were finishing the last lap. No one was expecting it to be a 220-lap race.''

Da Matta went by Bruno Junqueira on the restart and Papis began reeling him in. He took the lead with seven to go, but was passed right back by da Matta a lap later.

``When we finished, I did not think the race would be finished,'' the winner said. ``I did not want to fight off Max or (third-place finisher) Alex (Tagliani). I didn't want to do that because I did not want the other cars to come close to us. I decided I wanted the race to be between us three.''

Papis said he had da Matta set up for the final three laps.

``On that last restart, it took a lot of drafting and determination,'' he said. ``He was going inside and I had him set up by going outside. I did not expect that yellow flag to be out there.''

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Photo:

Cristiano da Matta, center, celebrates his Marlboro 500 victory with second-place finisher Max Papis, left, and Alex Tagliani.

Rodrigo Pena/Staff Photographer

Box: CART MARLBORO 500 RESULTS