And that's saying something... source: CART.com - John Oreovitz It took Jimmy Vasser a little over two hours and 33 minutes to complete the distance in The 500 Presented By Toyota at California Speedway last Sunday. His average of 197.995 miles per hour set a record for the fastest 500-mile car race in history--of any kind. Consider this. Had Vasser driven out of the California Speedway parking lot in his Shell Ford-Cosworth/Lola and cruised at that speed, two and a half hours of driving would have landed him in Reno or Tucson. Had runner-up Michael Andretti done the same from Team Green's Indianapolis base, he'd have been in Atlanta, Buffalo, Des Moines or Kansas City in that period of time. That's flying on the ground Vasser didn't just break the existing CART record of 189.727 mph set by Al Unser Jr. in the 1990 Michigan 500, he obliterated it. He also toasted the NASCAR record of 188.354 mph set by Mark Martin in the spring 1997 race at Talledega Superspeedway and Arie Luyendyk's Indianapolis 500 record of 185.981 mph, also from 1990. And remember, that's averaging nearly 198 mph. That average included seven pit stops and four caution periods that slowed 17 laps. Most of the race laps were in the high 220s, and Visteon/Patrick Racing's Oriol Servia had the fastest lap in race conditions at 232.114 mph.
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