Vasser

LONG BEACH, Calif. -- Jimmy Vasser's calculated risk paid off Saturday with his first pole in more than two years.

The former CART champion drove his backup car to his eighth career pole, barely beating favorite Cristiano da Matta for the top qualifying spot for Sunday's Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.

"The most significant thing is I lost the oil pipe on the primary car with about 20 minutes to go in the morning practice," Vasser explained. "We rolled out the backup car and it had some things I really liked right off the bat.

"We decided to pull the primary car, which meant losing our qualifying speed from Friday, but we knew today's speeds were going to be a lot higher anyway."

With a new qualifying procedure this year -- putting all 20 cars in the same session, doubling the time to 60 minutes and limiting the drivers to a maximum of 15 laps -- most of the excitement has come in the final 10 minutes of time trials.

Saturday was no exception, with nobody even driving onto the track for the first 25 minutes.

It got fast and furious with about seven minutes to go, with da Matta -- Friday's provisional pole-winner at 102.542 mph -- jumping back on top with a lap of 104.580 in his Toyota-powered Lola. Thirty seconds later, Vasser's Ford-powered Lola beat that with a lap of 104.585.

The time difference in the two fast laps was 0.003 seconds.

It appeared Da Matta, still looking for the first pole of his career, had time to retake the top spot until Michael Andretti spun into a tire wall with just over two minutes remaining, ending the session early.

	Jimmy Vasser drove to his first pole in more than two years.

"That red flag out there with a couple of minutes to go may have cost some guys," said Vasser, who was third on Friday. "We got a little lucky today, but you have to have some luck to win a pole."

Da Matta, who still had two of his allowable 15 laps left, said, "I probably could have gone a tiny little bit quicker, but everybody had the same chances. If we complained about every little thing that went wrong, we'd be around here for a long time."

The pole, his first since the Michigan race in July 1999, gave Vasser his first point of the season. He crashed on the opening lap of the season-opener last month in Monterrey, Mexico, a race da Matta won.

In fact, da Matta, who ended 2001 with a pair of victories, can match a CART record set in 1990 by Al Unser Jr. and equaled in 1998 by Alex Zanardi if he gets his fourth straight win on Sunday.

With the two front row cars so evenly matched, da Matta was asked if he expects a particularly competitive start.

"I'm expecting a good battle tomorrow for the race," da Matta said. "It's 90 laps, so the start is critical but no more so than any other race."

For Vasser, one of only two Americans in the field, the race on the 1.968-mile temporary road course on the downtown streets of Long Beach is very important.

"Cristiano's got a good jump on everybody in the championship," Vasser explained. "He's got 22 points and now I've got one."

Bruno Junqueira was third at 104.040, followed by Kenny Brack at 103.996, rookie Townsend Bell at 103.781, Tony Kanaan at 103.562, Adrian Fernandez at 103.506 and two-time Long Beach winner Paul Tracy at 103.452.