Thursday, April 9, 1998 | 7:58 a.m.
By MIKE HARRIS
AP Motorsports Writer
Paul Tracy thinks about his former team every day he's at the track.
He was fired from the elite Marlboro Team Penske after the 1997 season, but that's not the thing that comes to mind when he gets ready to step into his new Team KOOL Green Reynard-Honda.
Lurking in Tracy's thoughts are the bad habits he developed while driving cars built exclusively for Penske.
"It's been a harder transition than I thought it would be," he said. "The Reynard is so much different than I've been used to. ... Engineering the car, driving the car, tires, everything is completely different."
Tracy, 29, signed with Penske in 1991 as test driver for the winningest team in Indy-car history. He became a regular with the team in 1992 and, except for a one-year tour with Newman-Haas Racing in 1995, the young Canadian was part of the Penske elite, driving alongside champions Al Unser Jr. and Emerson Fittipaldi.
Now, his teammate is 24-year-old Scotsman Dario Franchitti, in only his second year in the CART FedEx Championship Series.
"He's got more experience than me in this car," Tracy said. "But he's not so set in the way he likes a car. He just goes out there and drives the hell out of it. I've got to get the car to my liking."
Tracy said to get the most out of Penske cars he had to "manhandle the thing around the track."
"You couldn't just relax and drive it," he said. "It's hard to break the habit of the last couple of years of manhandling the car and not letting the car do the work."
While Tracy was upset about leaving his former team, especially after being fired by longtime boss Roger Penske, the driver says he holds no grudges. He's happy to be working with new boss Barry Green, owner of Team KOOL.
"We've just got a big bridge to cross in terms of me learning the car and the engine and the tires," Tracy said. "But it's coming together. This is a program I'd like to see go long term, a building process."
Green is just as pleased with his new driver.
"Everybody knows how talented Paul is," he said. "He's fast on the track and he learns fast off of it."
Tracy won three races last year, despite his dissatisfaction with the Penske car, and has 13 career victories. So far, the results of his efforts with Green's team have been mixed.
In the opener in Homestead, Fla., Tracy qualified 21st and wound up 27th after damaging his car in a brush with the wall. In Japan, rain hurt his qualifying effort and he started 16th. But Tracy came back in the race for a solid fifth-place run.
Last Sunday in Long Beach, Calif., Tracy started ninth, but an encounter with Christian Fittipaldi on one of the street circuit's narrow corners sent Tracy's car flying. It nearly flipped on its top before slamming back to the track and into a tire wall. He wound up 25th.
Nonetheless, Tracy says he's now "much more balanced" than ever.
"I've been really concentrating on just not getting impatient," said Tracy, who will marry his girlfriend, Lisa, before the race on April 26 in Nazareth, Pa.
"The more familiar I get with the car, it'll all come together," he said. "It's a learning process. ... I just want to be consistent and finish all the rest of the races."
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