When Mario Dominguez was celebrating
his "victory" last year at Australia, most everyone in the media and
CART paddock looked away in embarrassment.
source: cart.com - Robin Miller After all, he'd taken the lead under the yellow on pit stops and, because of the torrential downpour, Dominguez had been declared the winner after the red flag came out. It certainly was not one of Champ Car's finer moments and I was disgusted watching the rookie dance around like he'd actually beaten anybody. Show us something when it counts, was my feeling. Well, five races into the 2003 season, Dominguez is doing just that and proving that we may have been a little hasty in dismissing him as a pretender. The 27-year-old native of Mexico City is coming off a European swing where he finished third at Brands Hatch and second at Lausitzring, Germany. He earned both podiums with strong drives and would have won Germany had it not been for a penalty. He's fifth in the point standings and has given his Herdez crew a little swagger in their step. But chief engineer Tom Brown isn't surprised with the progress. "We saw it a couple of years ago (in Indy Lights) and saw a couple flashes last year but it takes a couple years to mature and you've got to be patient to build up a rookie," said Brown, one of the mainstays from the Tony Bettenhausen/Herdez partnership.
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