This oval Tracy's office

Four victories at Milwaukee Mile

By DEAN MCNULTY, TORONTO SUN
June 2, 2006

MILWAUKEE -- The Champ Car World Series makes its one and only visit of the season to an oval race track starting today. And the experience is so new to some that they'll get a full day's practice before tomorrow's qualifying for the Time Warner Cable Road Runner 250 at the Milwaukee Mile.

One driver, however, hardly needs the extra practice.

Paul Tracy has won four times at the flat oval, putting him behind only Michael Andretti and Roger Ward -- each with five wins -- as the most successful driver here.

Tracy also has two poles and eight top-six finishes on the one-mile oval.

"I've always had a good car (at Milwaukee), and even in qualifying -- which isn't so important on an oval -- but I've had a couple of poles," he said.

Tracy said that his shiny record at Milwaukee has a lot to do with the preparation that his Forsythe Championship Racing team brings to the track.

"They know the setup, I know the setup... and I've won here four times before," he said. "Now, we just need the weekend to go right for us."

And that is something that hasn't been the case in all of the first three rounds of the Champ Car season.

Tracy crashed on the first turn at Long Beach, finishing 17th, but rebounded for second place at Houston and a fourth at Monterrey.

Meanwhile, Sebastien Bourdais has three wins already and threatens to run away with the championship unless Tracy and the rest of the pack can catch him.

"Sooner or later, Bourdais is going to have bad luck, too," Tracy said. "He hasn't been in that situation yet. He has been lucky with his reliability and had things go the way any driver would want them to go. But that's got to change at some point."

At the other end of the oval experience spectrum is Andrew Ranger, who will be making only his third oval track start of his Champ Car career.

The 19-year-old native of Roxton Pond, Que., however, is confident he can build on his early-season success with MiJack Conquest Racing that has him in fourth place in championship points.

He had one of the fastest cars on the track in 2005 at the Milwaukee Mile before a crash took him out just past the midway point.

"We were quick here last year during the race," said Ranger, who has suffered through sponsorship woes thus far this season. "I hope we can be as quick this year and that we can pick up as many points as possible to stay in the top four in the driver's standings."