Tracy Moves Front and Center

Paul Tracy, already the winner of CART’s first two races this year, guaranteed himself a front-row start in Sunday’s Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach by recording the fastest speed in Friday’s time trials.

The veteran Canadian driver tooled his blue No. 3 Player’s Forsythe Ford-Lola around the 11-turn, 1.96-mile street circuit at an average speed of 102.561 mph to take the provisional pole from Bruno Junqueira, who moments earlier ran 102.500 in a Newman-Haas Ford-Lola.

“I think if it’s dry tomorrow, then we’re kind of in position to sit and wait because we’re guaranteed the front-row start,” Tracy said. “We don’t have to rush and get out there right away. This was a great day for Team Player’s. We started off well in the first practice, we had a pretty good setup right off the trailer after testing our cars last week in Phoenix.”

French rookie Sebastien Bourdais, Junqueira’s teammate, was third at 102.319. Bourdais was fastest at the two earlier races in St. Petersberg, Fla., and Monterrey, Mexico.

Bourdais, who had never seen the track until he walked it Thursday, said he had not encountered a track like it in Europe, where he won the Formula 3000 championship last year.

“The pavement is pretty hard, as everyone can see,” he said. “You see a lot of different tarmac. It’s kind of bumpy. The walls are close, not always really uniform. It’s kind of tough to find your way through that. The only thing is to push, touch sometimes the wall, but don’t hit it.”

With wet weather anticipated today for the second round of qualifying, most drivers pushed their cars to the limit Friday to assure themselves solid starting positions for the 90-lap race. Qualifying today is at 1:45 p.m.

All of the cars were powered by turbocharged Ford engines. The track record for the existing circuit is 104.969 mph by Gil de Ferran in 2000, driving a Honda-powered Penske.

Lola chassis dominated qualifying, as they have all season. The first eight of the 18 qualifiers were Lolas, with former winner Jimmy Vasser in the fastest Reynard at 101.092 mph.

Being first at Long Beach is not new to Tracy. He won in 1993 and 2000 and took the pole in 1994.

“If the weather is bad Sunday and it rains -- we all hope it does not -- it will be very difficult,” Tracy said. “It’s a difficult enough track to get around on dry. Any street course is difficult. Fortunately, we have a new rain tire ... which is much softer than the previous tire we’ve run. I think that should help, but no one wants rain.”

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Fifteen celebrities will compete in the 10-lap Toyota Pro/Celebrity event today at 11:55 a.m.. Five of them, headed by fast qualifier Josh Brolin at 65.876 mph in a Celica, are considered “pros” and will start 30 seconds behind the 10 others.

Brolin won the race in 2000. Supercross champion Jeremy McGrath was third fastest at 65.083.

Actor Peter Reckell, who plays Bo Brady on the NBC daytime soap “Days of Our Lives,” ran a 65.058-mph lap and will start on the pole as the No. 1 celebrity. Bringing up the rear will be astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who piloted the lunar module for Apollo 11 in 1969 at supersonic speeds, but could squeeze only 59.574 out of his Celica.

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Aaron Justus, a rookie from Crestline, is on the provisional pole for Sunday’s Toyota Atlantic race with a track record speed of 91.701 mph. The old record was 90.636 by David Rutledge in 2001.