FONTANA, Calif. -- The Yamaha 400 was a bit of a disappointment for Team Penske drivers Gil de Ferran and Helio Castroneves, although they did finish fourth and fifth.

Team owner Roger Penske, calling the race for de Ferran, the champion of the rival CART series the past two years, took a shot at a victory late in the race when he had the Brazilian take only fuel and no tires during his final pit stop.

De Ferran jumped from fourth to first with the strategy, but held the lead for only moments after the restart on lap 175 of the 200-lap race.

"The team did a super job in the pits and Roger made a great call on our last pit stop, which put us in the lead," de Ferran said. "I did everything I could on the restart."

Castroneves lost a lap during a pit stop on lap 81 when his crew had problems getting his right rear tire off, and then the driver momentarily stalled the engine. He managed to make up the lap with the help of a couple of late caution flags, though.

"It was fun out there today," Castroneves said. "There was a lot of close racing. I tried my best to get to the front but, unfortunately, we just didn't have the speed to win the race."

Since moving from CART to the IRL over the winter, both Penske drivers have now finished in the top five in all three 2002 races and trail only defending IRL champion and Sunday's winner Sam Hornish Jr. in the points.

More disappointment
A day that had such a promising start, with Eddie Cheever Jr. and rookie teammate Tomas Scheckter both racing at or near the front through most of the race, turned into another disappointment for owner-driver Cheever.

First, Scheckter crashed hard, hit from behind by Hideki Noda after Scheckter slowed with an apparent engine problem. Then Cheever, who had given Nissan's Infiniti engines their first IRL pole on Saturday, blew his engine while battling with Jaques Lazier and Hornish for the win.

"I had Jaques and then I didn't," Cheever said. "We kept going back and forth. Hornish wasn't even in contention because he was in our dirty air.

"I think I could have run Jaques down. It's all a question of being in the right position. We were playing with each other and I broke an engine with 18 miles to go."

Cheever added, though, the fact that he and Scheckter were competition most of the day, in the longest race of the season to date, was a plus.

"It's a good lesson for Indy," he said, referring to next month's Indianapolis 500. "The Infiniti engineers will have to go back and fix the problem. I am happy to see that at least one Infiniti finished in the top three, with (rookie) Laurent Redon's third-place finish."

Workmanlike job
It was a pretty uneventful day for Memo Gidley, filling in for injured Robbie Buhl.

Gidley, who has been mostly a substitute driver in the IRL or CART over the last two years, didn't get into Buhl's car until Sunday morning's 30-minute warmup. He stayed out of trouble in the 200-lap race at California Speedway and finished 21st in the 27-car field, 16 laps behind winner Sam Hornish Jr.

"It's tough to hop into a car in even a perfect situation, and even tougher to adapt during a race," Gidley said. "We didn't have many laps in the car, but we moved up six spots on the grid and took the checkered, which was important for the team."

Buhl, who sustained a concussion in a crash during Saturday's qualifying, was in good condition but held for a second night in a hospital for observation.

Dr. Henry Bock, medical director of the IRL, said he expected Buhl to be released Monday and team officials said they expect him to be back in the car for the race in Nazareth, Pa., on April 21.

Generation next
Paul Menard, the 21-year-old son of IRL team owner John Menard, won Saturday's AGT class in the Grand American 400 Sports Car Series race at California Speedway. Menard, driving a Corvette, finished fifth overall in the five-class event.

"That was the longest race I've ever done," the younger Menard said. "I think I was in the car for close to 3 hours in total. Based on the blisters on my hands, I'm going to need a new set of gloves."

Menard races full-time for Team Menard in NASCAR's ReMax Challenge Series, which opens the season April 7 in Rockford, Ill. Last season, Menard won his first ReMax Challenge race on the road course in Elkhart Lake and finished ninth in the points.

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