Papis

LONG BEACH, Calif. -- Max Papis was bursting with pride for himself and his new team after a third-place finish in Sunday's Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.

The gregarious Papis was downtrodden last fall when he lost his ride with Team Rahal after a couple of up and down seasons. He then signed with the less-prestigious Sigma Autosport team, entering its second year in the CART FedEx Series.

"In the winter, everybody is saying Max is a loser," he said. "I don't believe this and I want to prove to people it is not true."

In the streets of Long Beach, Sigma used a pit strategy almost identical to race winner Michael Andretti -- staying on track when the other leaders pitted and making their final stop under caution in time to get back on track at the front.

Jimmy Vasser did take second place from Papis on lap 73 of the 90-lap event, but that didn't dampen Papis' happiness.

"This is more than a good race," said Papis, who has won three of 101 Champ car starts. "This is like a win for Sigma. This is their best performance so far.

"We came here without doing any testing from Mexico to Long Beach," he added, referring to the season-opener last month. "We also had very little testing before Mexico and we came here with no spare car."

Papis, who finished ninth in Mexico, now is a surprising fifth in the season standings, trailing leader Cristiano da Matta by nine points.

The Pits
Cristiano da Matta's hopes of matching the CART record of four straight victories -- after winning two last year and the opener in Monterrey -- disappeared during his second pit stop.

After passing pole-winner Vasser in the first turn of the race to take the lead and staying out front for the first 31 laps, da Matta was leaving his pits when he was broadsided by Adrian Fernandez.

"They called da Matta out when I was coming in and I was already ahead of him," Fernandez said. "They just threw him right in front of me. Of course, we lost a lot of time and a few positions."

Da Matta, who lost his chance at another win, said: "It was a big mistake to let this one get away. I saw Adrian coming in as I was merging in from my pit box. I didn't expect him to brake and turn in so quickly. I don't blame him and I also don't think I did anything wrong."

Da Matta's car skidded sideways into a couple of tires in Shinji Nakano's pit, knocking down one of Nakano's crewmen, who was not injured. The car was pushed back to da Matta's pit and restarted, but he never got back into contention, finishing eighth. Fernandez was 10th.

Close one
Michael Andretti's 0.466-second victory -- about five car-lengths -- over Jimmy Vasser was the second-closest finish in the 19 years that Champ cars have raced in Long Beach.

The closest finish came in 1986, the last time Andretti won in Long Beach. He beat fellow second-generation Champ car driver and six-time Long Beach GP winner Al Unser Jr. by 0.380-seconds.

The first win came with Barry Green as his crew chief. Now, Green is Andretti's car owner.

Andretti has 42 victories and trails only his father, Mario, who has 52, and the all-time Champ leader, A.J. Foyt, who has 67.

Spark plugs