Tracy's driven to turn corner

By DEAN MCNULTY, SUN MEDIA
July 7, 2006


TORONTO -- Paul Tracy is a man who doesn't make excuses for failure.

The most successful Champ Car World Series driver Canada has ever produced comes to his home race -- the Molson Grand Prix of Toronto -- 11th in the championship and 85 points behind his nemesis, Sebastien Bourdais, with little or no chance to bounce back into the hunt.

It doesn't matter in two of the six races he was taken out on the first lap by Mario Dominguez -- who was his teammate at the time.

It doesn't matter new teammate A.J. Allmendinger comes in to replace Dominguez and promptly rips off two consecutive wins at Portland and Cleveland.

Portland always has been a bad track for Tracy. At Cleveland, he was the victim of a squeeze play by Newman-Haas teammates Bourdais and Bruno Junqueira that left his car crippled for the rest of the race.

"You just have to stay cool," Tracy said yesterday as Grand Prix promoters guided him through wave after wave of media interviews.

"We are just going through a tough spell right now."

Tracy refuses to get into the blame game in describing what has happened to him and the Forsythe Championship Racing squad this season.

"It been frustrating for sure not to get the results we expect but that's life," he said. "We'll just have to come back."

The 38-year-old native of Scarborough, Ont., said his 16-years of racing in Champ Car have given him a perspective that allows him to take things in stride.

"I am just focusing on every weekend as if it were the start of a new season," he said. "There is absolutely no use in looking back and feeling sorry for yourself."

Tracy, in fact, appears to be buoyant at the thought of what he could do in the remaining eight Champ Car races.

"I still have the confidence of knowing that I can win at any track we go to," he said.

"And I am really pumped right now because every track we go to from now until the end of the season -- starting this weekend in Toronto -- are places where I have done well."

Tracy has won twice at his home track. Last year, he was on pace to win a third time when his team short-filled his fuel tank, causing him to run out of gas.

"Look, we showed last year in Toronto that we could be the best here," he said. "I feel great about my chances on Sunday."