A record 87 players participated in the three preliminary heats of this year's championship. A total of 20 tables ran, all but four having the full allotment of six players. Carnage was widespread, with at least two team principals suffering the loss of six cars (out of twelve) in six races, including Ron Wuerth, who lost five in the last three races alone. All but four of the 19 winners were on hand for the 6-race semi-finals Saturday evening, leaving room for the top three second-place finishers. Players were seeded based on their qualifying scores from the heats.

At Table 1, 2001 champion Steve Cameron came from behind to win convincingly by placing first and second in the final race for a 37-point victory. Lisa Gutermuth also advanced with 29 points, even though she finished higher than third in only one race.

Table 2 had the tightest overall point spread, with the last place team finishing a mere 10 points behind ultimate winner Ron Wuerth, who won with 32 points despite being shut out in the last race. Runner-up John Elliot scored only a single point in the last two races, and his 28 points were not enough to make it into the Finals.

Despite suffering only one retirement, Chris Janiec barely squeaked out a 1-point victory at Table 3. Bert Schoose and Bob Titran each won two races, and advanced into the Finals with 31 points each.

Lisa Gutermuth seized the early Championship lead, as her Toyotas finished 1st and 3rd at Melbourne after a collision ­ rolled by Cameron himself ­ claimed one of Cameron's Minardis and Wuerth's Jaguars. A Janiec Ferrari won the second race at Imola, though a single Toyota point left both teams tied for the lead with 15 points. A blown engine eliminated one Toyota at Monaco, yet a 2nd-place finish after a Ferrari-Minardi collision gave Gutermuth's team a 6-point lead; a Sauber victory put Titran in third place at the halfway point in the series, two points behind the Ferraris. But one Sauber spun out at Silverstone, preventing Titran from closing the gap with the Toyotas. That was the only retirement in a low-attrition race, as one of Wuerth's Jaguars took the checkered flag and second place in the series while Cameron's Minardis surged into a tie for third with the Ferraris. A Jaguar won again in the fifth race at Monza, moving Wuerth into a tie with the Toyotas (one of which finished 2nd) at 31 points each. Cameron's Minardis garnered enough points to claim sole possession of third, but even they were a daunting 12 points behind the leaders. Had the championship devolved into a two-team contest?

Going into the final race, only Schoose's Jordans were out of contention, and that only on tie-breaking criteria. But the field knew that in order to beat the front-runners, all of them save Cameron would have to place both 1st and 2nd at Suzuka while shutting out the leaders. Hopes rose for some as the crash cards came out early: a collision with a Sauber claimed one of Gutermuth's Toyotas, and one of Wuerth's Jaguars spun out and stalled. The surviving Toyota and Jaguar seemed mired in midfield; the front-runners all wore Jordan yellow, Ferrari red, and Minardi purple. But the need to both win and place the other car 2nd (or for Cameron, 3rd) proved to be too steep a hill to climb. A Jordan win was only good enough for fourth place overall for Schoose. Minardi worked two cars into the points, but 2nd and 5th only garnered third place for Cameron. Wuerth's remaining Jaguar failed to place, leaving Lisa Gutermuth to claim the Constructor's Championship by a single point through her surviving Toyota's 6th-place finish. She had held or shared the lead after all six races, and came away with the wood in the tightest series ever ­ a mere 8 points separated the winner's 32 points from fifth place!

More importantly, she took home her first WBC wood in a year when her dad - he of the 15-plaque collection - went home with zilch.

Special thanks are once again due to dedicated Assistant GMs Ron Wuerth and Chris LeFevre for their support during the event.