Bräck's first podium of the season was the prelude to two consecutive wins at Motegi and Milwaukee, putting him solidly in the championship hunt.

In the meantime, rumors spread that Nazareth Speedway would be cut from the 2002 schedule despite it being one of CART's longest-running events in an effort to reduce travel costs.

On raceday itself, CART officials released a statement that the series would be reviewing its options after the race in Japan and make a decision then.

[2] ...[O]ne of the things that has become clear to me in my five months at CART is that we must develop a process that allows us to more effectively determine where we conduct races.

This approach applies directly to the situation we face in the Lehigh Valley.It was later decided that the series would not continue racing at Nazareth, dropping the venue, along with Belle Isle, Michigan, Lausitz, and Houston for the 2002 season.

Another technical innovation was the introduction of the HANS Device, a restraint that reduced the amount of lateral head movement by the driver in the event of a crash.

PacWest driver Maurício Gugelmin, after being involved in a major crash in Texas the week before, withdrew from the event at Nazareth following the death of his six-year-old son, who had cerebral palsy.

[4] Gugelmin had not missed a race since his CART debut at Mid-Ohio in 1993; his 130 consecutive race-streak had been the longest of all active drivers in the series.

[5] Because the news came on such short notice, PacWest Racing had no backup drivers available to fill in for Gugelmin, and so the NEXTEL sponsorship from his car was placed onto his teammate's, Scott Dixon, instead.

Saturday morning practice was ultimately ended early due to light showers, but not before Bräck broke the twenty second barrier and took the top spot overall with a 19.926.

Halfway through the session, he lost control through Turn 2 and slammed into the outside wall, rupturing an oil line and sending the car up in flames.

Scott Dixon and Herta used the caution period to top off on fuel as they were both already at the back, precipitating the first of multiple race strategies that day.

The cars continued with little on-track action with the exception of Patrick Carpentier's engine letting go on Lap 28, forcing him to retire.

The stretch of green-flag racing came to an end on Lap 113 when Tora Takagi, running in 15th place, spun coming out of Turn 4, bringing out the caution for the fourth time.

[13] The top four drivers of Bräck, Servià, da Matta, and Fernández used the caution period to stop for tires and fuel on Lap 124, as did Castroneves and Michael Andretti.

The stop was not without incident, however: as Kanaan moved onto the apron on the back straightaway to enter the pits, he almost collided with 3rd place Bräck, who was trying to pass him on the inside.

Despite dominating the first half of the race and carving his way through the field after the last yellow, Bräck was having difficulty keeping up with Dixon and he struggled to maintain pace as the laps wound down.

[14] By winning the race, Dixon became the youngest winner in professional open-wheel racing history at 20 years, 9 months, and 14 days old until the record was broken by Marco Andretti at the Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma in 2006; his performance here would be a deciding factor in his winning CART Rookie of the Year for the 2001 season.

He would go on to win six championships in the IndyCar series and score 56 more race victories; his ability to conserve fuel would later become one of his most well-known traits as a racer.

Dixon had denied Kenny Bräck his first CART series win, and he would have to wait until the next race at Motegi before earning his first victory.

Paul Tracy, who rounded out the podium, had taken his third Top-4 finish in a row and was now tied with da Matta for first place in the points standings.