Atlantic

SBRS: CART Ladder System update 2002-09-02

INDIANAPOLIS (September 2, 2002) - American Jon Fogarty of Dorricott Racing scored his second CART Toyota Atlantic race win of the season at the inaugural Shell Grand Prix of Denver and in doing so, captured the 2002 Championship over Canadian ...

Edited: Dec 29, 2009, 6:56 PM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

INDIANAPOLIS (September 2, 2002) - American Jon Fogarty of Dorricott Racing scored his second CART Toyota Atlantic race win of the season at the inaugural Shell Grand Prix of Denver and in doing so, captured the 2002 Championship over Canadian Michael Valiante of Lynx Racing by only 11 championship points. Fogarty, starting fourth, moved up early to second place and finally took the lead from Scotland's Ryan Dalziel on Lap 13 in a braking maneuver that saw both drivers lock up the wheels in the wide open Turn 5 area. From there, Fogarty would lead the rest of the way, surviving a late race charge by Hylton Motorsports' Dalziel, to win by 0.652-seconds.

Fogarty's Dorricott Racing teammate Alex Gurney battled throughout the race to earn the final podium position in third place. Scuadra Fortia's Waldemar Coronas scored his career best Atlantic finish in fourth place while P-1 Racing's Jonathan Macri rounded out the top five. The final Dorricott Racing car of Luis Diaz came home in sixth place. Aaron Justus earned a top ten finish (seventh place) in only his second race with PDR Racing. Sepp Koster of Michael Shank Racing ended his rookie season with an eighth place. Sigma Autosport's Rocky Moran Jr. followed up his Montreal win with a ninth place while Condor Motorsports' Frank Dancs finished in tenth place.

Valiante entered the weekend with a six point lead over Fogarty, but could never get higher than fourth place on the track. With Fogarty winning and capturing the one point for most laps led, Valiante needed to score a second place finish to secure the season championship. While battling Gurney for third place on Lap 33, Valiante drove deep into the aforementioned Turn 5, wiggled the car and finally lost control on the concrete patch at the apex of the corner. By the time he restarted the engine and resumed, he had fallen all the way to 13th place. He would finish in 12th place.

"It's hard putting a meaning to this day and race into words at the moment," commented Fogarty, winner at the season opener at Monterrey, Mexico as well. "It meant so much to win it for Dorricott Racing. I owe so much to the entire team. They worked hard all year, especially when you consider that we switched from Indy Lights and had to learn a new car."

"We've had some time tough times during the year and when we did, Michael always seemed to be there ready to capitalize on them," continued Valiante, who last led the championship following the Chicago race in late June. "I feel that now that it is said and done, this Championship is deserved."

Fogarty becomes the first rookie to win the Atlantic championship since Alex Barron did so in 1997. Consistency seemed to be the key to his championship run, as Fogarty placed in the top five in ten of the twelve races in addition to his two bookend wins at the season opener and finale.

The win marked the second consecutive CART Driver Development Ladder System championship for Dorricott Racing. With Townsend Bell at the wheel, the team captured the final Indy Lights Championship in 2001 before making the move to Atlantics this year. It also holds extra special meaning for the team due to the passing of team owner and founder Bob Dorricott Sr. in April of this year.

Behind the Fogarty-Valiante battle, Gurney secured third place in the final championship standings. Diaz, a winner at Portland and Road America, finished in fourth place. Moran Jr., winner at the penultimate round of Montreal, rounded out the top five in championship standings.

Showing the strength of the CART Driver Development system, four of the top five drivers in the final point standings - champion Fogarty, runner-up Valiante, Gurney and Moran Jr. - are graduates of the Barber Dodge Pro Series.

-cart-

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article CHAMPCAR/CART: Toyota Notebook 2002-09-03

Next article Jon Fogarty press conference, part I

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

WEC drivers question lack of full-course yellow after heavy Monza crash

WEC

WEC WEC

Monza

1 h

WEC drivers question lack of full-course yellow after heavy Monza crash

How Formula 1 proved the naysayers wrong – for once

Formula 1

Sao Paulo GP

How Formula 1 proved the naysayers wrong – for once

Kyle Larson, Cliff Daniels and the Hendrick 5 are who we say they are

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Homestead-Miami

3 h

Kyle Larson, Cliff Daniels and the Hendrick 5 are who we say they are

Final NASCAR Cup points standings after 2026 Homestead finale

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Homestead-Miami

7 h

Final NASCAR Cup points standings after 2026 Homestead finale

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts