The 2000 Marlboro 500 Presented By Toyota was a

CART A cart or dray (Australia and New Zealand) is a vehicle designed for transport, using two wheels and normally pulled by draught animals such as horses, donkeys, mules and oxen, or even smaller animals such as goats or large dogs. A handcart ...

racing event scheduled for October 29, 2000 at

California Speedway Auto Club Speedway (known as California Speedway before and after the 2008–2023 corporate sponsorship by the Automobile Club of Southern California) was a , D-shaped oval superspeedway in unincorporated San Bernardino County, California, ne ...

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, USA. Inclement weather, however, forced race officials to call a halt to the race and it was finished the next day. It was the final race of the FedEx Championship Series for the season. The race was won by

Christian Fittipaldi Christian Fittipaldi (born 18 January 1971) is a Brazilian former racing driver who has competed in various forms of motorsport including Formula One, Champ Car, and NASCAR. He was a highly rated young racing driver in the early 1990s, and parti ...

, driving the #11

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/Route 66 Newman/Haas Racing Lola-Ford. It was his second and final career victory in the CART series.

Media coverage

The race was carried on

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as part of its ''SpeedWorld'' series of motorsports coverage. Paul Page was the lap-by-lap commentator with

Parker Johnstone Parker Johnstone III (born March 27, 1961) is a former race car driver and motorsports announcer from Redmond, Oregon. An accomplished musician, he was the principal trumpet of the International Youth Orchestra, touring Europe, playing with Herb ...

as analyst. Gary Gerould, Jon Beekhuis, and Rick DeBruhl were on pit road.

Background

This was the first CART event at California Speedway since Greg Moore was killed in a major accident during the same race a year earlier. In the interim period, track management pulled up the grass along the backstretch and paved over the entire area. In addition, tire barriers were placed along the retaining wall where Moore's accident had occurred to protect from potential catastrophic damage.

Championship

Entering the race, the points race was tight and several drivers were able to contend for the championship. The points leader was Gil de Ferran, driving the #2

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Reynard-Honda. Adrian Fernandez, the defending winner of the Marlboro 500 in the #40

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/ Quaker State Reynard-Ford for

Patrick Racing Patrick Racing was an auto racing team in United States Auto Club, USAC, Championship Auto Racing Teams, CART, Champ Car World Series, Champ Car and the Indy Racing League. Patrick Racing was started by Pat Patrick (auto racing), U.E. "Pat" Patri ...

was second place by five points. Fernandez had also won the previous week's event in Australia, while de Ferran was taken out in a crash on lap 1 with 1999 series champion

Juan Pablo Montoya Juan Pablo Montoya Roldán (; born 20 September 1975) is a Colombian racing driver, who competed in Formula One from to , IndyCar between 1999 and 2022, and the NASCAR Cup Series between 2006 and 2024. Montoya won seven Formula One Grand ...

. Further back, but needing help, were Paul Tracy in the Team KOOL Green #26 Reynard-Honda and rookie Kenny Brack in the

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#8 Team Rahal Reynard-Ford. Tied for third, nineteen points behind de Ferran, they would both have needed to score the maximum number of points available in the race and have de Ferran and Fernandez both finish without recording a point. Tracy had also been involved in a wreck in the Australia race, as Oriol Servia hopped a curb in a chicane at the Surfer's Paradise street course and T-boned the #26; Tracy had been running second in series points entering the event. For the first time in four seasons, a new championship team was guaranteed to be crowned. Target Chip Ganassi Racing, which had won the last four CART titles with Jimmy Vasser, Alex Zanardi, and Montoya, entered the race with both Vasser and defending series champion Montoya far out of title contention; Vasser was 22 points behind de Ferran and Montoya 30, and neither driver would have been able to catch him.

References

{{reflist Marlboro 500 Marlboro 500 Auto Club Speedway MAVTV 500 Marlboro 500