First, Al Unser Jr. was a smiling victor. Then he became an unhappy victim of the rules.
Unser, a two-time PPG Cup champion, overpowered the field in Sunday's Budweiser-G.I. Joe's 200 at Portland International Raceway. But his win was struck down three hours after his joyous Victory Lane appearance.Indy-car, the series sanctioning body, ruled his Penske-Mercedes car failed a post-race inspection. The win was awarded to Jimmy Vasser, giving the 29-year-old, who had finished nearly a half-lap behind Unser on the 1.95-mile, nine-turn road course, his first career victory in his 48th start.
It was a severe blow to both Unser, whose second win of the season and 29th of his career had apparently helped him jump into the series point lead and salve some of the empty feeling still remaining from his failure to qualify for last month's Indianapolis 500. Teammate Emerson Fittipaldi was also unable to make the Indy field and was not a factor in Sunday's race.
The failure at Indy, which was also a severe blow to Marlboro Team Penske, made this year's 500 the first without a member of the Unser family since 1962 and the first without a Penske driver since 1968.
"I just think it's a real shame that this has happened to Team Penske and it just seems that's the way the year has been going," a stunned Unser said Sunday. "The team worked really hard. Nothing was wrong with what happened to the car today. It was something that Indy-car saw as a rules infraction."
Kirk Russell, vice president of competition for Indy-car, said Unser's Penske-Mercedes was found in a post-race inspection to have less than the required 2-inches of ground clearance.
Unser's car had been bottoming out throughout the race, sending up telltale puffs of white smoke from its compressed board skidpads attached to the underbody of the car.
Unser was stripped of the 21 points he had earned and was not scored in the final race standings. Instead, the series point lead is shared by Jacques Villeneuve and Robby Gordon, tied with 81 points.
It is the first such disqualification of an apparent winner in the Indy-car series since 1983, when Tom Sneva was disqualified for low ride-height after winning at Milwaukee. In that case, spectators had been leaning against the car in victory lane before it was inspected. But the ruling stood.
Roger Penske, the owner of Marlboro Team Penske, filed an immediate protest and issued a statement.
It said, in part, "Penske's position is that the car experienced a mechanical failure (re - the rear skid plate was broken off the car as a result of the car riding over uneven surfaces on the race track)."
The team's statement further pointed out that the car was inspected repeatedly during the weekend and passed in every case.
If the protest is turned down, as expected, Penske would have three business days to file an appeal. If an appeal is turned down, the matter could then be taken to a special tribunal appointed by Indy-car.
Russell said it took nearly three hours of investigation and discussion to make the decision to disqualify Unser's car.
"We wanted to review not only the physical facts but any additional information," he said. "The integrity of the rules is important because people prepare their race cars based on the rules.
"It's very seldom when we do find a car out of specifications of the rules."
The bottoming of the car was obvious as Unser sped through the 102-lap race, but additional attention was drawn to it when the middle of three pieces of the plywood skidpad sailed out from under the car on the 90th lap, floating harmlessly to the side of the road after Unser drove over one of the many curbings lining the 1.95-mile, nine-turn road course.
Russell said that missing piece did not play a part in the decision, although he said, "It may have come off because it was taking such a pounding. The rest of the reference point (bottom) of the car was so badly worn that it was impossible to take a proper measurement, but we could not find a place to measure that was over the 2-inch rule."
The 29-year-old Vasser said, "I really don't know how serious the infraction was. It must have been something because this is a serious organization and they wouldn't just do something on a whim.
"It's not the way I wanted to win my first race. I would have liked to have won it on the track. But on behalf of the (Chip Ganassi Racing) team and all our sponsors, it's great. We can use the points."
His best previous finish was second place two weeks ago at Detroit.
The disqualification moved Bobby Rahal to third, followed by Michael Andretti and Raul Boesel, the only other drivers on the lead lap
Vasser's margin of victory over Rahal was listed as 1.257-seconds. The new winner averaged 103.504 mph, well under the race record of 107.777 set a year ago by Unser in his second Portland win.
Unser led 76 laps, including the final 68. But following the disqualification, those laps were redistributed to Villeneuve, who picked up one point for leading the most laps ; Paul Tracy, who in the initial results did not lead at all and wound up being credited with 45, and Vasser, who was shown as the leader for the final seven trips around the road course.
Vasser, the sixth different winner in nine races this season, took over the top spot when Tracy's transmission broke on lap 95.
At Watkins Glen, N.Y., Terry Labonte survived a race-long duel with Chad Little to win the Lysol 200 NASCAR Busch Grand National stock car race Sunday at Watkins Glen International.
Labonte, driving a Chevrolet, won for the second straight year and third time in five years in the only road course event on the Grand National schedule.
Labonte and Little exchanged the lead four times during the 200-mile race on the 2.45-mile course, but Labonte took the lead for the final time on lap 48 and led the rest of the 82-lap distance.
"My car seemed to be better in long runs," said Labonte, a two-time winner this season on the NASCAR Winston Cup Series. "Chad's car was better on a restart, but once we got going, I could get away from him."
Little's Ford finished 3.88 seconds behind, with the Chevrolets of Ricky Craven, Mike McLaughlin and Jeff Green completing the top five.
Labonte won $20,370 and averaged 84.186 mph in a race that lasted two hours, 23 minutes and 11 seconds. There were seven cautions for 15 laps.
At Portland, Ore., Greg Moore led wire-to-wire Sunday, winning the Portland round of the Firestone Indy Lights series, his sixth victory in seven starts this season.
The 20-year-old Canadian, in his second season in the series, came up with his ninth career victory. He beat runner-up Affonso Giaffone of Brazil by 11.08 seconds on the 1.95-mile, nine-turn Portland International Raceway road course.
Moore, who averaged 88.907 mph in the 39-lap, 76-08-mile race, is well on his way to matching or beating the record of nine victories set by Paul Tracy, now an Indy-car star, in 1990. Tracy set the record during a 14-race season, while there are only 12 events scheduled this year.
Nick Firestone finished third, followed by series rookie Mike Borkowski and Buzz Calkins.
Robbie Buhl, who started the day in second place in the standings and is the only driver to have beaten Moore this season - winning two weeks ago at Detroit - hit another car and bounced off course while running second on a restart late in the race. He wound up a lap off the pace in 12th.
The start of the race was marred by a three-car crash in which Bob Dorricott Jr., Cam Binder and Jack Miller were knocked out of the race.