Vasser recalls a fiery and related exchange with Zanardi when the tour stopped in Cleveland at the Burke Lakefront Airport event.

“We did first practice in Cleveland and I’m off the pace,” he says. “And I go in to see Zanardi who was P1 or something, and I said, ‘What are you doing out there? I think our cars are pretty much the same according to the setup sheets.’ So he says to me, ‘You’re a ******* wanker!’ I was like, ‘What?’ And he says again, ‘You’re a ******* wanker. What do you do wrong with your car? The car should be able to go fast like mine.’ So I was like, ‘**** you!’ But in a happy way, right? Because we were best buddies.

“But I was so mad that I went out in qualifying and put it on pole by a mile. Just because he pissed me off. He was like that. And that was me. I was like, ‘Oh, really, Zanardi?’ Eventually in the race, I think the gearbox failed, but he pissed me off and it woke me up and I put it on him pretty good in qualifying.”

Newman/Haas Racing’s Michael Andretti picked up where Vasser left off, winning twice in a row after the U.S. 500, and Zanardi was up next with his first win. Al Unser Jr. also brought some pressure to the points leader with a steady run of podiums for Roger Penske. Like Unser Jr., Zanardi would also start living on the podium and add a few more wins to his rookie tally.

The heat was rising for Vasser, who went six rounds without a whiff of a top 3 result, and with his downturn in fortunes, Andretti, Zanardi, and Unser Jr. carved into his championship lead. Finally, at Round 13 in Mid-Ohio, Vasser’s No. 12 Reynard-Honda stemmed the bleeding with a strong second-place finish behind his teammate.

Road America delivered another ration of points with a sixth and the penultimate race was more of the same with a small helping of points as Vasser crossed the finish line in seventh as Andretti won both races.

It was a packed house for Vasser’s home race to say farewell to the season with a reported 55,000 fans in attendance to watch the championship get settled around the tight 2.2-mile road course. If the 27 cars set to race this weekend at Laguna Seca sounds like a big number to deal with, the 1996 CART finale had 29 drivers on the grid and a fair number were not particularly talented.

Zanardi delivered a historic moment of his own with his spectacular charge to victory at Laguna Seca. Michael Levitt/Motorsport Images

Despite the congestion and risks, Vasser capped his breakout season with a smart afternoon spent running in third; only a late charge from fellow Northern California product Scott Pruett changed the finishing order as Vasser took fourth at the finish line. His old teammate Bryan Herta was second, and up front, Zanardi authored one of IndyCar’s most famous moments at Laguna’s Turn 6, the Corkscrew, where he fired the No. 4 Reynard-Honda down the inside of Herta and scrambled across the circuit — and the runoff area — to make “The Pass.”

As fans marveled at what took place atop the hill in Monterey, Vasser, Ganassi, team manager Tom Anderson, San Francisco 49ers legend and CGR investor Joe Montana, and the rest of the team celebrated “The Win.”

“It was awesome, man,” Vasser says, his emotions rising. “I just lost my father a little while ago, and that championship win was that was the culmination of everything that we had worked for from the time I was six years old in quarter midgets at Baylands Raceway in Sunnyvale, and Sears Point, and Laguna Seca — my home tracks. And you know, everybody was there. Angelo and Irma Ferro from Genoa Racing. Bob Lesnett and Riccardo Pineiro from Pfeiffer Ridge Racing. The whole San Francisco Region of the SCCA. Jim Hayhoe and his wife Catherine. Not to mention all my high school people from Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, right up the road from Laguna.

The champions celebrate with the PPG Cup at the post-race season-ending banquet. From left: Vasser, Joe Montana, Zanardi, Chip Ganassi. Image courtesy of CGR

“Chip, Joe Montana, Tom Anderson, Mike Hull, and Zanardi…who was so happy for me. It was total bliss. There was just so much magic for me at Laguna Seca. You know, even before ’96, I won the Nor-Am Pro Formula Ford race in ’85, which was in front of the IndyCar crowd. I won my first SCCA Formula Ford race in my Crossle at Laguna Seca. I won the Atlantic race in ’91 at Laguna Seca. It was the place where magic happened for me.

“That day, though, winning the CART championship at Laguna, it really has never been duplicated. In my racing career, or my life. That was a day that all my family, all my friends, all my racing family, everybody was there. We all got to everybody that had had a hand in me getting there. There was nobody missing. Perfect day.”

​Listen to four-time Super Bowl winner Joe Montana recall his time with Vasser and CGR below, or click here.