Tracy’s Sitting on Cloud Three

Less than 14 miles from his first win as a CART champ car driver, Michel Jourdain Jr. pulled into the pits Sunday for a splash of methanol and four tires on his red and white Ford-Lola. Bobby Rahal’s crew, considered the best in the business along pit row, was waiting.

Jourdain had just run the fastest lap (102 mph) of the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach to build up enough margin to hold his lead while pitting. The crew did its job and gave Jourdain the signal to move out.

Nothing happened. The car would not move. Desperate crewman pushed it a ways down pit lane, then forlornly pushed it back. Jourdain’s moment of glory had ended.

“We had the best car, the best crew, everything,” said a tearful Jourdain after climbing out of the car and getting a big hug from Rahal, owner of the Gigante car. “Everything was so easy. Then it wouldn’t go.”

Rahal said it appeared to be either a clutch or gearbox failure.

While the drama played itself out, Paul Tracy was moving ahead of Adrian Fernandez and wondering -- as were the estimated 95,000 fans -- what happened to Jourdain.

Tracy, who has felt the same sadness in races lost as Jourdain felt Sunday, motored on to the win, his third straight in the young champ car season and his 22nd since winning his first one in Long Beach in 1993.

He also won the Long Beach race in 2000.

“I had tried everything I could to catch him, but he was pulling out all the stops,” Tracy said of the second-generation driver from Mexico City. “The pace was so fast, for so long, that it was a very tiring race. It was definitely the most physical race I’ve ever done.”

Tracy’s average winning speed of 91.950 mph was a record for the current track configuration of 11 turns in 1.96 miles.

Fortunately for open-wheel racing fans, Jourdain’s misfortune gave them something to talk about because as far as action on the track was concerned, once again there was not a single pass for the lead while cars were racing on the track. All of the seven lead changes came when the lead car was in the pits.

Fernandez held on for second, his highest finish in 11 years at Long Beach. Bruno Junqueira was third.

Jourdain, who led a race-high 48 laps to 33 for Tracy, finished 15th in the 19-car field.

“These are the days when you shake your head and say ‘Why me?’ ” Rahal said.

“I am so proud of the job Michel did this weekend. He drove an outstanding race and he and the crew never made a mistake all weekend long.

“I really feel for Michel because there was no doubt he was the class of the field and that he had the fastest car. Even Tracy said he couldn’t catch Michel and that says a lot.”

Jourdain echoed Rahal’s feelings, only more so.

“Days like this don’t happen very often,” he said. “This is the first time it has happened in 123 races for me. I did everything right and the crew did everything right. It just wasn’t meant to happen.”

Only Tracy has prevented Jourdain, whose father Michel drove in CART races in 1980 and 1981 and whose uncle Bernard was co-rookie of the year at the 1989 Indianapolis 500, from having a career year. In the season’s first two races, Jourdain finished second, both times behind Tracy.

On Sunday, Jourdain was the pole-sitter, but Tracy beat him at the start, getting the jump just as the green flag appeared, and leading for the first 26 laps. After the first sequence of pit stops, Jourdain was in front for the next 30 laps. Then, when Fernandez, Oriol Servia, Sebastien Bourdais and Jimmy Vasser pitted much earlier than the leaders, the race seemed to hinge on pit strategy.

Servia seemed to have the best chance of holding off Jourdain and Tracy, but his game plan failed when he ran out of fuel three laps from the end.

“Maybe it is a Long Beach thing,” the young Spanish driver said. “Last year I was running very well and then had an engine let go with five laps remaining. Maybe it is something about California because I ran out of fuel at Laguna Seca in 2000. I don’t know. To have it end the way it did was just a shame.”

Bourdais, the precocious rookie from LeMans, France, saw his hopes of a high finish go up in smoke with a blown engine and a 16th-place finish.

“It’s not too good to have so much bad luck in the first three races but the situation should turn around soon,” he said. Although he was the pole-sitter in the first two races, his highest finish has been 11th.

Fernandez, the only driver-owner in CART, said he was hampered by slower cars in front of him.

“I made a mistake at the start of the race, spin too much the wheels, and I lost a place to Oriol [Servia], unfortunately, because Oriol wasn’t that quick. I lost a lot of time to the leaders behind him. Then we pass him in the pits.

“Then we have the pit strategy, we decided to pit [differently] than the other guys. But then I was behind Oriol again and he was slowing a lot to the point where we lost the leaders. I think that was the key. If Oriol had been a little bit quicker, I think the end result of the race could have been different.”

Despite the fast pace and nine rookies in the field, there were only two accidents.

Alex Yoong, a former Formula One driver from Malaysia, missed a turn on Lap 33 and rammed into a tire wall.

Three laps later, just after a round of pit stops during the yellow caution period, rookie Rodolfo Lavin spun on cold tires and when his car rebounded off a tire wall, it caught the nose of Robert Moreno’s car, disabling them both.

None of the drivers were injured.

Tracy’s win moved him further ahead in his quest of a first CART driving championship.

He has 64 points to 38 for Junqueira.