Tracy Takes Time to Make It Count

Long Beach always has been a special place for Paul Tracy.

The enigmatic Canadian, 31, overcame a starting position of 17th and an early pit-road collision with Michael Andretti to win the 26th annual Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach on Sunday before an enthusiastic crowd of more than 100,000.

Driving a Team Kool Green Honda-Reynard, Tracy registered his second Long Beach victory, finishing 3.19 seconds ahead of Helio Castro-Neves, one of Roger Penske’s new drivers. Jimmy Vasser was third, a few feet back of Castro-Neves, for Toyota’s highest finish since the Japanese manufacturer joined CART in 1996.

It was Tracy’s latest success at Long Beach, where in 1993 he recorded the first of 16 victories in a checkered CART champ car career. Two years before at Long Beach he made his first career start in a car his father rented from Dale Coyne. In that 1991 race, after finishing 22nd, young Tracy was sitting on a curb, head in his hands, when Penske rode by on a bicycle and told him to give him a call.

That led to Tracy becoming a test driver and later a Penske team driver, a move that jump-started his CART career.

Sunday, only nine drivers finished on the same lap as the winner as the bumpy street surface and 11 turns had an impact in spin-outs, collisions and broken suspensions.

“This was a new car and both Dario [Franchitti, his teammate] and I were lost all weekend, but the crew never gave up,” Tracy said. “I really have to give credit to Steve Challis. After qualifying so poorly, we’d exhausted all the setup ideas we had, all our notes from previous races, and we weren’t getting anywhere.

“Then Steve got out his notebook and we put on one of their setups from last year [when Challis worked with the late Greg Moore] and the car was just perfect. I got out of the car about 15 minutes in warmup this morning and told the guys it was great, leave the car alone. Then we had perfect calls from the pits.”

He also needed some luck. On Lap 11, Andretti and Tracy pitted during a yellow caution flag and when Andretti swung out abruptly, Tracy was accelerating and ran over Andretti’s rear wheel.

“My car went straight up in the air, but luckily it came down flat,” Tracy said. “I thought we were done right there. It was pretty lucky that nothing was damaged.”

Tracy and Andretti, both out of sequence with the front-runners on pit stops, worked together to move toward the lead. Andretti had started 14th, three spots ahead of Tracy.

“What helped us was that we stuck with our [pre-race] strategy and didn’t get caught up in what the other guys were doing. Michael and me were on the same strategy so we ran together a lot of the way and that brought us up through the field.”

Andretti took the lead on Lap 35 and stayed in front for 13 laps. He still was challenging when he pitted on Lap 73 and a fire began in the rear of his car. Curiously, a more serious fire started in his teammate’s car earlier. When Christian Fittipaldi leaped from the flaming car, he injured his ankle and had to be carried to the first-aid center for treatment.

Tracy, driving a careful race in contrast to some of his earlier outings, did not get in front until Lap 62, 20 laps from the finish, but once there he drove a masterful race.

“Paul didn’t make one mistake in the last 25 or 30 laps,” said team owner Barry Green. “He was absolutely perfect and that’s what it takes to win at Long Beach.”

The win moved Tracy into the CART FedEx points lead for the first time since 1997 when he drove for Penske. After two events, he has 34 points to 26 for Vasser and 20 for Roberto Moreno, the former Super Sub who finished ninth after leading on two occasions.

“It’s great to be leading in championship points especially since by no means did we expect to come out of here with a win,” Tracy said. “It was because I got the most out of myself, the most out of the car and the guys on the crew just did a fantastic job. It was push, push, push.

“We’ve started in the back twice this year and haven’t panicked. The plan was just to stay alive and not get into a wreck. It was just huge to win, just phenomenal.”

In the season opener at Homestead, Fla., Tracy also started 17th and finished third.

Max Papis, the Homestead winner, went out early when he crashed into a tire wall after his brake pedal broke.

Pole-sitter Gil de Ferran led the first 30 laps before a series of incidents dropped him out of contention. He finished seventh.

“It was a tough day at the office,” the Penske driver said. “Unfortunately, after the first yellow, Roberto [Moreno] had a problem on the restart and Jimmy [Vasser] slowed down and I ran into the back of him which damaged my front wing. After that I had problems with understeer and I struggled with my braking.

“On the positive side, Helio [Castro-Neves] had a good finish which is great for the team.”

Castro-Neves and Vasser put on the day’s most exciting duel late in the race when the veteran Vasser tried time and again to squeeze past the Brazilian youngster. He pulled even several times, but never could quite make the pass.

“I knew Helio was low on fuel and was on old tires, so I was sure I could pass him on the outside because I had a fast car, but I couldn’t make it,” Vasser said. “I finally decided I was better off taking my 14 points for finishing third than maybe crashing.”

Castro-Neves, whose second-place finish in his second race for Penske, equaled his career best despite a pit-stop violation for speeding.

“I was really upset about that because I was being careful,” he said. “I must have hit a bump or something to get 51 [mph].

“I really had to conserve my fuel after the last stop to make it to the finish. I finally ran out of fuel on my cool-off lap. Of course, Jimmy [Vasser] was all over me for a long time.”

His second place also was the first podium finish for Team Penske since Al Unser Jr. was third at Milwaukee in 1998.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

THE FINISH

1. Paul Tracy

2. Helio Castro-Neves

3. Jimmy Vasser

*

COVERAGE

Jimmy Vasser makes some noise: Page 8

The other racesPage 8

Jeff Gordon wins at Talladega: Page 8