Witherill

GLADEVILLE, Tenn. -- Cory Witherill led most of the 77 laps in winning the second race in the Infiniti Pro Series. He took the lead by passing Arie Luyendyk Jr. on the inside of Turn 1 on lap 10 and stretched his lead out by as much as nearly 15 seconds.

Luyendyk never got closer than 8 seconds, the final margin, and Aaron Fike finished third.

''The car was perfect,'' Witherill said. ''I could put this car anywhere. This track is definitely a setup track. I talked with my engineer trying to figure out the fast way around here, and I guess we did.''

Gary Peterson, who had been due to start eighth, wasn't cleared to race after a crash during qualifying Friday. He suffered a concussion, and he said he now hopes to be cleared to race next weekend when the series, which debuted at Kansas Speedway earlier this month, heads to Michigan International Speedway.

''I'm doing fine. Feeling good, just a little bruised,'' he said.

Penske talks business
News of more corporate corruption cases erupt almost daily. Roger Penske said Saturday the best thing about racing for fans these days might be the knowledge that any cheaters are caught immediately.

''We go through inspection every weekend before the race, and we go through inspection after the race and the results are public,'' he said before the Firestone Indy 200 at the Nashville Superspeedway. ''You have to say there's not much left.''

Penske, the head of Marlboro Team Penske, also is the founder and chairman of Penske Corporation with annual revenues near $11 billion each year. He never misses an open-wheel race and personally runs the team for Gil de Ferran during races. He calls the experience his golf game, which fires him up for business.

''You have a bad quarter or a bad month, you sometimes don't have to show it to the public. But out here, it's there, and you're hung out to dry if you don't get the job done,'' he said.

Team Penske has performed very well this season, its first since leaving CART for the Indy Racing League. Helio Castroneves and de Ferran rank one and two respectively in the points race, and they have combined for three victories not counting the Firestone Indy 200.

As a chief executive officer of a public company, Penske said he is disappointed at the string of businesses coming clean over accounting and other problems after becoming reckless. He also worries the federal government will go overboard in responding.

''The government now is obviously very pro-active in it, and I hate to see things happen where you can't really take the proper process and see what happens,'' Penske said.

Technical changes
One thing that has helped Sarah Fisher get comfortable comes under the heading of low-tech.

Her crew put a platform under the pedals of her G-Force Infiniti, and she qualified seventh for Saturday night's Firestone Indy 200, her best starting position in only her third full race since joining Dreyer and Reinbold Racing.

''My feet are a lot smaller than those of the other drivers in the series,'' the 5-foot-3 Fisher said.

''So now the ball of my foot is higher on the pedal. It made such a difference in the throttle of the car during practice (Friday), and I can get on the gas earlier. I can drive it harder since I can feel what my feet are doing.''

Just visiting
The Nashville Superspeedway has easy access to celebrities, and Saturday was no diffferent. Country singer Brad Paisley sang at a concert before the night race, while Tennessee Titans offensive lineman Fred Miller sent drivers in the Infiniti Pro Series to their cars.

Luke Perry watched the Infiniti Pro race from the pits of former ''Beverly Hills 90210'' co-star Jason Priestley. Perry has a home in Tennessee, and he said he wanted to lend moral support.

''I've taught a number of drivers, and Jason has as much potential as any of them,'' he said.

But the biggest name in political circles kept a low profile. Al Gore, the former vice president whose hometown is 35 miles away, was a guest of a friend for the Indy Racing League race and had no public comment or appearance.