FONTANA, Calif. -- The drivers, as it should be, are the stars of the FedEx Championship because they take the risks and put on the show. But this week here at California Speedway they should share the spotlight with their mechanics.

Because the Tool Box Brigade has to perform under almost as much pressure as their drivers in a situation that demands precision and is squeezed into a very trying time frame.

Following last Sunday's carnage in Australia, which featured an eight-car pileup on an aborted start and a red flag after 40 laps in wretched wet conditions, the cars were shipped back to the United States.

They arrived late Tuesday night in nearby San Bernardino and early Wednesday morning the mechanics began the task of changing from street course configuration to oval track packages or simply building new cars to replace the crashed ones.

The garage area was overflowing with mangled racers, back-up cars and the superspeedway equipment driven here from the Midwest shops of these teams last week.

"It looked like Sanford & Son, you know, the proverbial yard sale with stuff scattered all over the place," said Don Hoevel, chief mechanic for 2002 CART champion Cristiano da Matta of Newman-Haas Racing.

"I mean, we're all busting our hump but least our cars came back on all four wheels."

The final tabulation of that accident read as follows:

Cars of Tora Takagi and Jimmy Vasser written off after flipping down the straightaway.

Cars of Alex Tagliani, Patrick Carpentier and Adrian Fernandez badly broken, while those of Michel Jourdain, Michael Andretti and Mario Dominguez sustained moderate damage.

	The eight-car first-lap wreck at Australia gave many of CART's mechanics even more work this week.

"We threw away Jimmy's (Vasser) car, it was junk, because there was a big hole in the tub," said Mark Johnson, who calls the shots for Vasser at Team Rahal. "Fortunately we had a fifth car brought out here in case something happened to Jimmy or Michel (Jourdain, his teammate) and it's a good thing."

Advance planning also helped rescue the Player's/Forsythe squad.

"We had our two primary oval cars sent out here by truck so now the cars Pat (Carpentier) and Tags (Tagliani) drove in Australia after the crash will serve as backups while the other two are sitting in a truck where they would have been anyway," said Bruce Ashmore, technical director at Player's/Forsythe.

"They're both hurt but it's just suspension stuff and bits."

Fernandez suffered two thoracic fractures in his back and will sit out this weekend (replaced by veteran Max Papis) while Takagi is going to attempt to drive the lone car he's got left with a fractured pelvis.

"Tora took a hard shot because the nose of Tag's car was literally buried right behind the seat but I think he rolled up off the seat a tad when he was flipping through the air so that might have helped prevent even worse injuries," said Derrick Walker, owner of Takagi's Reynard-Toyota. On top of that, Oriol Servia's Lola/Toyota caught fire in a driving rainstorm under the caution flag and was badly burned.

"It burned all the wiring in the car and also the sidepods were melted," said Steve Krisiloff, team manager for Patrick Racing and Servia. "A piece of bodywork had to be painted because of the fire so we shipped it FedEx to our shop back in Indianapolis and they'll paint it and have it back out here in time for practice Friday morning."

But, if the cars had never turned a wheel at Surfer's Paradise, they would still have to undergo major face lifts for the 225 mph speeds in Sunday's California 500 and that meant a 12-hour day Wednesday and at least six more Thursday.

"You've got to change suspension, underbody, wings, springs, shocks and the engine," said Krisiloff, who raced Indy cars in the 1970s. "You have to take the diff out of the gearbox, put in a spool and change all the gears.

"And it's more difficult because you're not doing this in your shop where you know you've got everything."

Of course the dangers and challenges of superspeedway racing are well documented and the cars must be safe and sound for 250 laps and three hours on this high-banked two-mile oval.

"Everything has got to be crack checked and nothing can be overlooked," Johnson said. "You want your best stuff in place for a 500-miler at this joint."

Between the jet lag from the 13-hour flight from Brisbane to the thrash to get the cars ready to the pit stop contest Friday morning, the mechanical men behind the scenes are as flat out as their drivers will be come Sunday afternoon.

"You've got less than two days to change your cars and make sure everything is prepared properly," Hoevel said. "We're all burned out by Sunday night but it's what we do."