Portland: Da Matta caps perfect weekend

Da Matta earned the maximum of 23 points for the Portland weekend to extend his CART championship lead after six of 20 races.

Da Matta lost his pole position advantage to Kenny Brack at the start and he was unable to pass the Swede's Lola-Toyota through the first two 30-lap stints. But exiting the pits in the lead after his third stop, Brack's left rear wheel parted company with his car, putting him out of the race.

Brack and da Matta had sped to a 15-second lead over third place man Junqueira over the first 40 laps, but when they encountered traffic, Bruno closed the gap to nothing prior to Brack's fateful stop. He then put heavy pressure on da Matta throughout the remaining 50 laps, but came up short by 0.625 second.

Dario Franchitti and rookie Townsend Bell diced throughout the race, with Bell taking third place during the lap 65 restart. But the American stalled his Toyota engine during his last pit stop on Lap 88, handing the final podium position back to Franchitti. Patrick Carpentier was fifth and early season points leader Michel Jourdain sixth.

"That was one of the toughest races of my life," remarked da Matta after averaging 105.381 mph on the way to his seventh career CART win and fifth in the last eight races. "I was pushing 101 percent from beginning to end. There was never any time to relax because I was always under pressure. But that's what made it fun. We were running qualifying laps from start to finish."

Junqueira looked to be the fastest man on the track, but he was unable to find his way past da Matta's similar Lola-Toyota.

"I was a little bit faster than Cristiano but I couldn't get close enough to try to pass," Junqueira said. "I kept waiting for him to make a mistake but it never happened. We were both pushing hard, but I just never could pass him."

Key retirements Sunday included Milwaukee winner Paul Tracy, who came out on the short end of a collision with Christian Fittipaldi on Lap 33. Jimmy Vasser was eliminated by a broken engine.

The Champ Car series now has a week off before resuming with a two-day race weekend at Chicago Motor Speedway June 29-30.