RACE: For a street course -- in fact, for any track -- this was quite a clean race. Only two yellow flags, just six cars DNF'd, and the top 19 finishers were on the lead lap.

TRACK: There's got to be a way to get rid of those chicanes.

DE FERRAN: Did not repeat last year's blunder, and now heads into Fontana as the champion. A very deserving champion at that.

PENSKE: Roger is officially back to dominating fashion. So, what will he do after rebuilding his team from the abyss to the pinnacle in one of the toughest racing series in the world? He is going to allow others to dictate his actions, and possibly run away and hide to beat up on barely financed teams whose drivers proved no match to Penske's pilots this past May. Maybe this isn't the Penske of old after all. Way to be a man, Roger...

BRACK: European trained, F3000 champion, and it's his performances on the road and street events that cost him a title. Irony can be cruel.

DA MATTA: With pit strategies and luck seemingly the ingredients to winning these days, one look at the way Cristiano was throwing the car around the track attacking the course is evidence enough that he deserved this victory the old fashioned way.

MORENO: Despite some down periods this year, it is still difficult to justify not bringing Roberto back next year.

ANDRETTI: Now that he is out of the championship, he runs a clean, solid race.

VASSER: His move on Scott Dixon was a picture perfect example of experience over youth.

CASTRONEVES: Went down with a fight. Now he needs to regroup to salvage third place.

DIXON: A well deserved Rookie of the Year. The revelation of the year.

JOURDAIN: Another fine run, but probably not enough to save his job.

HERTA: An extremely disappointing weekend. Bryan should be doing better than this.

BARRON: Not a great return to the series.

MEARS: Well, he's got Fontana to look forward to. And perhaps his last chance to impress an owner.

GUGELMIN: How many times is Mauricio going to bang up his body before he decides to call it quits?

HONDA: Perhaps it was the racing gods paying them back or just poetic justice for their sudden departure from the series. Whatever it was, it was quite fitting for Paul Tracy's Honda engine to explode in the Honda Hairpin, resulting in Tracy stopping in front of a Honda banner.

ESPN: Maybe the announcers also had the "looking for a job syndrome." For some reason, Paul Page and company were in rare form. They were very loose, relaxed, humorous and entertaining.

STAT OF THE WEEKEND: Nearly 75,000 fans for qualifying day. Wow!

HISTORICAL STAT OF THE WEEKEND: Surfers Paradise has been run for 11 years. And there have been 11 different winners.

QUOTE OF THE WEEKEND: Jimmy Vasser on the shenanigans during the first group's qualifying session, including his own incident, "It was just a circus out there, and I was one of the clowns."

QUOTE OF THE WEEKEND RUNNERUP: Bobby Rahal on his excitement when Gil de Ferran did not score the point for pole position, "I told Jimmy to kiss Roberto for me."

SCHEDULE: No championship to decide (except for some positioning in the lower places). Fontana becomes a 500 mile flat out, everybody go for the victory kind of race. A nice way to end the season.

Copyright © 2001 by Deep Throttle. All Rights Reserved.