BOURDAIS, AGAIN; Newman-Haas doubles up at Cleveland.(Motorsports)

Byline: BILL McGUIRE

Turn One at Cleveland's Burke Lakefront Airport must be the most nefarious corner in the Champ Car World Series. Four of the last five races there have started with crashes. Last year everyone made it through in one piece, but that was a fluke. This year the whole front row was neatly taken out, opening the way for Sebastien Bourdais to grab his second consecutive win of the season, and his second consecutive Cleveland victory as well.

The first corner at the airport course is a funnel of evil: Surely the drivers know what always happens there, but they can't seem to help being sucked in. While virtually any number of cars can enter the corner at the same time, some smaller number of cars is likely to come out the other side.

"It's wide,'' said Bourdais, describing the broad runway which constitutes the pit straight. "But everybody has to hit the same apex,'' he says of the crucial spot in the 120-degree hard right-hander that comes a few yards later. "So when you have 10 cars pretty much targeting the same place on the track at the same moment, that's not going to make it.''

At the green flag, pole-sitter Paul Tracy made his signature move wide to the left on the outside, while Justin Wilson on the outside pole followed him, then thought he saw an opportunity to cut to the inside. But at the same moment Alex Tagliani was making a mad charge up the middle from his fifth-place starting position, and they met. Wilson bounced off Tagliani, then into Tracy; Wilson was finished on the spot, while Tracy retired on pit road a short time later with a fractured undertray.

"I know I am a very late braker, yet I see these cars flying past me into the corner,'' said Bourdais, waving both hands. "That is not going to work. I saw smoke, I saw lots of things flying over my head, and just when I got out of the turn I saw that nobody was even close to me.'' Once clear, Bourdais led 88 of the 97 laps for the win.

So as things turned out, Bourdais' third-place position was the best place to be for the start, though it must not have seemed so in qualifying.