DRIVER OF YEAR 246-66 vote gives honor to Da Matta

It was the first time in the award's 36-year history that a tiebreaking mechanism had to be implemented.
SARASOTA, Fla. (AP) -- CART champion Cristiano da Matta needed a tiebreaker to beat NASCAR Winston Cup champion Tony Stewart for the 2002 Driver of the Year award.
Each of the drivers drew six first-place votes from a nationwide panel of 16 motorsports journalists.
The tie-breaking mechanism was used for the first time in the 36-year history of the award. Points awarded to each driver in the four quarterly ballots were added up and da Matta beat Stewart 246-66 to win the overall prize.
Da Matta, who will move to Formula One next season, is the first winner from CART since Nigel Mansell in 1993. Like Mansell, da Matta won the award while driving for Newman/Haas Racing.
Da Matta, a 29-year-old Brazilian, won seven races, seven poles and clinched the CART title with three races remaining in the 19-race season. His 73-point margin over second-place Bruno Junqueira was the biggest in CART history.
Stewart, 31, won the NASCAR title with a late-season charge and didn't wrap it up until the final race of the 36-race season. The Indiana native had two poles, three victories and 15 top-five finishes.
"It's tough to be compared to NASCAR, but it shows that everyone was paying attention to what we were doing on the track," da Matta said.
Other vote-getters
Also receiving votes in the final balloting were World of Outlaws champion Steve Kinser, Top Fuel drag racer Larry Dixon and Funny Car driver John Force, the 1996 Driver of the Year.
NASCAR's Kurt Busch, who closed the season with three victories in five races, easily won the fourth-quarter balloting, joining IRL champion Sam Hornish Jr., Dixon and da Matta as quarterly winners in 2002.
Da Matta will be honored Friday night at CART's awards banquet in Miami. As part of the evening, he will receive a trophy, a custom 2003 Indian Motorcycle and a Maurice Lacrois Swiss Watch in recognition of his selection as Driver of the Year.