Last years winner at The Milwaukee Mile was Jimmy Vasser. He did well in qualifying but pole position went to Helio Castro Neves making it the first pole position of his CART career. Vasser did however, feature
strongly in the race taking the lead early on but lost it to Dario Frachitti in the Reynard Honda. The Team
Kool driver ran into one of his pit crew during his pitstop and the ensuing delay meant that he dropped to
the back of the field. Franchitti's teammate, Paul Tracy, took over but was soon passed by Vasser.
Taking advantage of a full circuit caution Vasser went to the pits for his third stop.
Meanwhile Paul Tracy was circling the one-mile oval, which was under an extended full course yellow. As soon as the green flag was waved, Tracy stormed into the lead taking his first win of the season 5.8 seconds
ahead of Greg Moore. This was Tracy's first win since Gateway 1997 and ended his 35 race drought of
victories. The race was somewhat controversial as many penalties were handed out for pit lane and track
infringements. Among those affected were championship leader Juan Montoya and Dario Franchitti.
Montoya eventually finished tenth with Franchitti in seventh.
Montoya still leads the championship but only two points separate him from Franchitti. The excitement in this season's championship is building race by race. This is reflected in the close point scores on the drivers
standings. Race 8 takes place on June 20th at the Portland International Raceway. Don't miss the review here on June 26.
Murph (Email)
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