ROCKINGHAM, England -- With only 38 laps remaining in Saturday's Rockingham 500, Dario Franchitti snatched the lead away from Kenny Brack with a seamless pit stop that only magnified the slowness of Brack's crew.

''It came down to the last pit stop,'' said Franchitti, who as a Scotsman was the crowd favorite in CART's only stop in England this year. ''I've been giving my guys a very hard time about the pit stops, and if they ever needed to do one, that was a peach.''

	Franchitti's victory was the 10th of his CART career but his first on an oval.

Brack was on pit road himself, and a mistake turned the stop into another bad moment in a long season for the Swede. Brack, who was the pole sitter, finished eighth, continuing his run of bad luck this season after finishing second in the series last year.

''There is something hanging over us,'' said Brack, who drives for Target/Ganassi.

Franchitti, part of Team Kool Green, averaged 157.682 mph and completed the 312.069-mile race in 1 hour, 58 minutes, 44.754 seconds -- .986 seconds ahead of Brazilian Cristiano da Matta, who retained his commanding lead in the season standings. Canadian Patrick Carpentier of Player's Forsythe finished third.

Franchitti, who started fifth and fell to 16th after stalling coming out of his first pit stop, got his big break under a caution flag on the 173rd lap. He and Brack pitted simultaneously, and Brack -- who led this race last year, only to be passed by Gil de Ferran on the final turn -- needed only a reasonable stop to hold on for the victory.

''My stop was dynamite,'' Franchitti said, who moved from third to first on the stop.

Brack, meanwhile, sat in his Lola and watched a crew member drop a wheel nut changing tires.

''We lost the race there,'' Brack said. ''I do my part, they do their part. When everyone is having a good day you win. If not, you lose.''

With four races remaining, da Matta is cruising toward his first title with 191 points. Bruno Junqueira, da Matta's countryman and Brack's Ganassi teammate, finished fifth in the race and stayed second in the standings with 133 points. Franchitti remained third but is closer to Junqueira at 126 points.

The victory -- Franchitti's first on an oval course and third overall this season -- ended a tumultuous few weeks for the Scotsman. He won in Montreal on Aug. 25, but a week later in Denver he was knocked out on the first lap when teammate Paul Tracy crashed into him. Tracy apologized, but Franchitti was irritated after losing valuable points.

''Luckily, Paul stayed away from me this time, so I was pretty grateful for that,'' Franchitti said Saturday.

After the race, Franchitti was serenaded by a band of bagpipers playing ''Scotland the Brave.''

''It's just terrific to get my first oval victory at home,'' he said.

Da Matta, driving for Newman/Haas, said he thought his car was quicker than Franchitti's on the low-banked 1.479-mile oval, but he couldn't find a way to overtake him.

''I wasn't in a position to take a risk. I couldn't get close,'' da Matta said. ''I was, of course, very worried about the points lead. I felt like I had the car to win the race, too, but out on the race track it was very difficult to overtake with the short straights and the long, fast corners.''

''Only four races left with a 58-point advantage, it's a pretty good advantage. I can still not relax, because mathematically it's not over.''

A crowd estimated at only 30,000 turned out for the race on a chilly day in central England, where the Rockingham Motor Speedway has a capacity of 52,000.