The Associated Press

CLEVELAND - Rookie Sebastien Bourdais crossed the finish line with one of his tires visibly damaged Saturday to win the CART Cleveland Grand Prix, held at night for the first time in its 22-year history.

Bourdais, the polesitter who has had a wildly inconsistent first season, took the lead from Jimmy Vasser at the end of lap 83 and won for the third time.

But while cruising to an apparently easy win, he barely avoided a disaster with four laps to go when he had contact with Adrian Fernandez. Bourdais' car sustained damage to the left side, and his left rear tire was nearly shredded.

Against a spectacular backdrop on the shores of Lake Erie, the 24-year-old Bourdais who honed his night driving skills in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, France - his hometown - had the fastest car and the fastest pit crew.

On his third pit stop, Bourdais' Newman/Haas pit crew was able to get him back on the track quicker than the Players' team of Tracy, the points leader who led the first 67 laps.

Bruno Junqueira was third, 3.9 seconds behind Bourdais.

Defending champion Patrick Carpentier was fourth.

Tracy and Bourdais ran a two-man race for 67 laps, zipping quickly through the corners and powering down the illuminated runways of the temporary 2.106-mile course at Burke Lakefront Airport.

When the drivers came in for their third of four required pit stops, Bourdais was just 1.06 seconds behind Tracy. Bourdais pulled out first, and as he came down pit row, he was nearly hit by Tracy.

Vasser led for a brief time before he was reeled in and passed by Bourdais, who built his lead to more than 11 seconds before his incident with Fernandez in Turn 2.

After three laps were run under a yellow caution flag, Bourdais had to hold off Tracy in Turn 1, where he was early schooled by the Canadian, and sped away for the victory as Tracy and Junqueira battled behind him.

Tracy, making his 200th career start in a CART race, took advantage of Bourdais' inexperience on the course and snatched the lead at the start with a smooth move.