Team Green driver Dario Franchitti won the race after narrowly escaping a first-turn pile-up and then by gambling on a fuel-saving strategy that saw his car run out of fuel just after crossing the finish line ahead of a hard-charging Memo Gidley and Bryan Herta.

Just a week prior, Max Papis had won his second career race in rain-soaked Portland for Team Rahal while his teammate Kenny Bräck was still in control of the drivers' championship.

Much to the concern of race engineers, the weather forecast going into the weekend at Cleveland also seemed to predict rain on raceday, which would affect handling and grip on an already bumpy track surface.

Nevertheless, the teams and drivers were looking forward to the annual race at Cleveland, which was popular with the fans and unique on the calendar for its speed and an unusual amount of room to pass other cars.

Michigan would join Texas, Nazareth, Detroit, Lausitz, and Houston as race events that would not appear on the 2002 CART calendar.

At the end of the 1 hour, 45 minute session, Cristiano da Matta led the rest of the field as the only car to break into the 58-second range with a 58.905.

[3] By the time the second Friday practice began, clouds had rolled in and covered the area in overcast conditions.

[5] The dark clouds looming over the track on Saturday afternoon threatened to pour rain at any time during qualifying.

The rain stayed away for the thirty-minute session, and the dry track allowed Maurício Gugelmin to top the time sheets with a 57.356 on his final lap.

With the second group about to qualify at 2:30 PM, the long-awaited rain finally began to lightly drizzle on the track.

Drivers continued on without rain tires, and Bräck, Scott Dixon, and Paul Tracy would each spin on the slippery track just minutes after the beginning of the session.

The light rain meant that the track would quickly dry up, and the lap times subsequently began to rise with each passing minute.

In post-qualifying comments, Gugelmin remarked that his lap time would have held up even if the second group hadn't experienced rain, but he also lamented that the current system of two-session qualifying was prone to scenarios like what happened earlier in the day.

But I'm happy that this happened because maybe the system will change for the better to make it more fair for everyone.We got lucky that it rained on the second group, but the car was good.

That's the first time we had better track conditions than them [the second group]; we're still at a disadvantage.Last-place Tracy put it best: It's a giant pain in the butt because when it started to sprinkle, we didn't go right out.

[8] As race time approached, the storm system that brought about a tornado watch 50 miles west of Cleveland and had been forecast to the hit the track had moved southward, although the skies were still overcast and winds of 25 mph continued to blow across the circuit.

Patrick Carpentier and Michel Jourdain Jr., starting in the midfield, both spun after being hit by Tony Kanaan and defending race winner Moreno.

The caution flag came out as a result of the first-turn accident as rookie Wilson led his first-ever laps in CART, followed by Tagliani and Memo Gidley; the first row of Gugelmin and Fernández had fallen back to 5th and 4th, respectively.

Several cars, including Moreno, Jimmy Vasser, Kanaan, and Papis, stayed out a lap longer than the rest of the field before finally pitting and handing the lead back to Gidley.

Zanardi was forced to hit pitlane as well due to a flat tire, doing so at the same time Gidley gave up the lead to Bräck to make his second stop on Lap 62.

Meanwhile, drivers like Gidley and Gil de Ferran, who came in for their second stops a few laps earlier, were committed to a three-stop strategy.

In the meantime, leader Gidley began to extend his lead over Franchitti with each passing lap, hoping to put enough of a gap between them so that he could potentially come back in 1st place after his final stop.

Herta, who was spun around, was able to keep going and only lost one position to Bräck; Moreno stalled the car and had to wait to be restarted before continuing, falling back to 12th.