Easy Lies Head Bearing Crown

Swimmers shave their heads to give them less drag, an aerodynamic approach to going fast through the water.

Paul Tracy is not a swimmer, but he has shaved his head, even though it will be encased in a full-face helmet, because ... well, just because he’s Paul Tracy. Maybe he got tired of deciding which color to dye his locks, or maybe it was because they were thinning.

“I just decided to shave it all off, it was easier that way,” said the Champ Car World Series champion on arriving in town for today’s Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, a race in which he is defending champion and the favorite.

It hasn’t slowed him down. He will start third in the 90-lap Champ Car race on the 11-turn, 1.968-mile course, even though he was the second-fastest, behind only pole-sitter Bruno Junqueira’s 102.808 mph set Friday in one of the Newman-Haas Lolas-Fords.

Sebastien Bourdais will start alongside his teammate on the front row because his 101.501-mph speed was the fastest Saturday on a track made slippery and treacherous by intermittent rain. The second-day qualifying leader automatically gets a front-row spot.

Tracy did 100.929 mph Saturday after his 102.447 in dry conditions Friday.

“I’m happy with third, it’s a long race,” said the veteran Canadian driver. “So much has changed since we were here last year, nobody really knows what to expect. We have soft tires we have to use, extra push-button horsepower, and the crews haven’t done a pit stop in seven months, so we’ll just have to see how it plays out” today.

Tracy, enigmatic and unpredictable as he has been in 14 years of high-level open-wheel racing, is the heart and soul of the new Champ Car series. As the old CART organization was collapsing about him, the 35-year-old, once the enfant terrible of racing, has remained steadfast in his devotion and determination to keep it alive.

After first Roger Penske, then Chip Ganassi, and more recently Pat Patrick, Adrian Fernandez and Bobby Rahal took their name drivers and teams from CART to the Indy Racing League with offers of more money and more opportunities, Tracy was asked whether the IRL had approached him to do likewise.

“They know better,” he said with a wicked smile.

“Sure, I’ve had offers to make the switch, but I’ve been a part of this since my first race here in Long Beach in 1991 and I’ve had some wonderful experiences, and I think I owe it to the series and to myself to see it through.”

If there ever was a time for Tracy to move away, it was last year, when his team’s longtime sponsor, Player’s, was forced to withdraw from racing because of Canada’s crackdown on the tobacco industry. He wound up winning the championship -- his first in 13 years -- not in his familiar pale blue Player’s Lola-Ford, but in an unsponsored car with no name on its sides.

As successful as he has been in CART, with 26 wins, 19 poles and the 2003 championship, his links to Long Beach have been profound.

He drove his first CART race here as a 22-year-old from Toronto in a car his father had rented from Dale Coyne, a field-filler machine. After the race, disconsolate over his disappointing 22nd-place finish and concerned that the family fortune had been squandered, Tracy was sitting on a curb when Penske happened by.

Impressed with the youngster’s driving style despite the lack of success, Penske offered him a job as a test driver. When Rick Mears was injured the following year, Tracy was rushed into service and drove in 11 races, his place in racing secure.

His first CART win came at Long Beach in 1993 after qualifying on the front row alongside Formula One champion Nigel Mansell. Tracy won by 12 seconds over Rahal, with Mansell third.

Tracy won again in 2000 after starting 17th and got his third Long Beach win last year to take a huge lead in CART standings that he carried to the end.

“This is a fun track,” Tracy said. “The basic course hasn’t changed in six, seven years. But the one thing that sticks out in my mind that really hasn’t changed in all the years I’ve come here since my first race in ’91 is the fans. They are crazy about Champ Car racing.

“They are the type of fans that held this whole series together. That’s one thing about Long Beach, it’s crazy about racing and holding a party. I mean, I’m just proud to be a part of the series and proud to be part of the legacy that has run here.”

Junqueira, the Brazilian who will be on the pole for the eighth time, finished second to Tracy in points last year but had a word of warning for him this season.

“We were together two weeks ago in Miami, and we were cycling and I beat him,” he said. “I told him, this year I am going to beat him, any kind of wheels, two, four, six, anything.”

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Year-by-Year

A look at the Long Beach Grand Prix pole position winners and race winners. Gil de Ferran holds the qualifying record at 104.969 mph in 2000 and Paul Tracy the race record at 91.590 mph in 2003:

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POLE POSITION WINNERS*

*--* Year Driver 1984 Mario Andretti 1985 Mario Andretti 1986 Danny Sullivan 1987 Mario Andretti 1988 Danny Sullivan 1989 Al Unser Jr. 1990 Al Unser Jr. 1991 Michael Andretti 1992 Michael Andretti 1993 Nigel Mansell 1994 Paul Tracy 1995 Michael Andretti 1996 Gil de Ferran 1997 Gil de Ferran 1998 Bryan Herta 1999 Tony Kanaan 2000 Gil de Ferran 2001 Helio Castroneves 2002 Jimmy Vasser 2003 Michel Jourdain Jr. 2004 Bruno Junqueira

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RACE WINNERS*

*--* Year Driver 1984 Mario Andretti 1985 Mario Andretti 1986 Michael Andretti 1987 Mario Andretti 1988 Al Unser Jr. 1989 Al Unser Jr. 1990 Al Unser Jr. 1991 Al Unser Jr. 1992 Danny Sullivan 1993 Paul Tracy 1994 Al Unser Jr. 1995 Al Unser Jr. 1996 Jimmy Vasser 1997 Alex Zanardi 1998 Alex Zanardi 1999 Juan Montoya 2000 Paul Tracy 2001 Helio Castroneves 2002 Michael Andretti 2003 Paul Tracy

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