JOLIET, Ill. - Buddy Rice is okay and Adrian Fernandez is a winner again.
Fernandez beat Bryan Herta by 0.0716 seconds at the Delphi Indy 300 on Sunday for his second victory in a month, but it was overshadowed by a scary crash late that sent Rice's car skidding upside down on the track.
"When I see an accident, the first thing I say is, "Is everybody okay?' " Fernandez said. "I have lost personal friends in situations like this. So the main thing for you is to know that the driver is okay."
For a few minutes, though, it didn't look so good.
Rice, the Indianapolis 500 winner, was fifth on Lap 186 of 200 when Darren Manning's right front tire touched Rice's left rear as they came out of Turn 2. The impact turned Rice's car sideways and lifted it into the air.
The car did a backward somersault over Manning's car before the nose hit the track. The body of the car slammed into the wall and came down on the roll hoop, a safety feature behind the cockpit.
"I don't know really, I was just hoping for it to stop," Rice said when asked what was going through his mind when his car was skidding. "All I had was sparks and stuff flying by me the whole time."
When safety workers lifted the car and put it back on its wheels, Rice popped up. His helmet had scorch marks on it, but Rice was unscathed.
The crash helped Fernandez. He led Laps 57-65, then went into the pits and discovered his jack was broken. That meant his crew would have to manually lift his car to change the tires - a maneuver that would cost precious seconds in the pits.
So he hung back and changed pit strategy, making his last stop on Lap 137 and figuring he would need some yellow flags to have a chance to win.
He got them.
Fernandez led Laps 148-181, thanks in part to a 22-lap caution. Herta passed Fernandez on Lap 182, but Fernandez chased him down and edged back into the lead on Lap 183.
Then came Rice's crash and another yellow that kept Fernandez in first with Herta behind him.
CHAMP CAR: Patrick Carpentier, cruising toward a dominating win at Laguna Seca in Monterey, Calif., let his mind wander. The next thing he knew, the Canadian had the left wheels of his Lola-Ford in the sand alongside the asphalt track.
"That was about seven laps from the end," Carpentier said, grinning sheepishly. "Sometimes the mind waves off and, this time, it waved off too much. I got two wheels off and almost lost it."
He recovered quickly, though, driving away from second-place Bruno Junqueira to win the Grand Prix of Monterey, which was shortened from 80 to 79 laps on the 2.238-mile, 11-turn road circuit because of the series time limit for road races.
Series leader and pole-sitter Sebastien Bourdais twice pitted with flat tires after banging into other cars and finished eighth. His points lead over teammate Junqueira was whittled from 35 to 24 with three races left.
FORMULA ONE: Rubens Barrichello overcame an unscheduled early pit stop to finish ahead of world champion Michael Schumacher in a 1-2 showing by Ferrari in Monza, Italy, its home track.
Barrichello has won this race two of the past three years, and has eight career victories. The performance by Ferrari sparked celebrations by thousands of Italian fans who displayed the team colors with red caps and shirts.
