LV’s Tracy surprises himself with victory

Monday, April 17, 2000 | 10:33 a.m.

LONG BEACH, Calif. -- After qualifying a disappointing 17th for Sunday's Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, Paul Tracy said the best he could hope for was to bring his Team Kool Green Reynard/Honda home in one piece.

Winning the race, the Las Vegas resident said Saturday afternoon, was out of the question.

But between Saturday's final qualifying session and Sunday morning's warm-up, Tracy got an assist from an unexpected source that enabled him to charge to the front and capture his 16th career CART victory in front of an estimated crowd of 100,000.

The assist came from Team Kool Green race engineer Steve Challis, who joined the team after working with the late Greg Moore -- Tracy's close friend -- last season.

"Both (teammate Dario Franchitti) and myself, we were lost all weekend," Tracy said. "It was very frustrating but we never gave up. After qualifying (Saturday), we had pretty much done everything that we could have done to the car that we had in our notebook.

"We opened up Greg's notebook and put one of Greg's setups on and went out (Sunday) morning and the car was perfect. The car was great all day; it was easy to drive, it was easy on tires, the fuel mileage was good and the crew did a great job on the pit lane."

Tracy, who took over the lead in the CART FedEx Championship Series points standings with the win, was followed to the checkered flag by Helio Castro-Neves and fellow Las Vegas residents Jimmy Vasser and Alex Tagliani.

Tracy's run from 17th to first was the second-longest charge on a street or road course in CART history. Al Unser Jr. won on the streets of Miami in 1986 after starting 19th.

It also was the second strong comeback for Tracy in as many races. In the season opener at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Tracy drove from the 17th starting position to a third-place finish.

"We by no means thought we were going to come out of here with a win," said Tracy, who scored his first career CART win at Long Beach in 1993. "We didn't think we were going to be in contention to win in Homestead, either. But we push and we push and we push and I drive the car to the maximum that I can and as fast as the car will let me go.

"I just try to get the most out of myself, the most of out the car, all the time. I'm also getting the most out of my (crew); a lot of teams that qualify that badly ... will kind of throw in the towel and give up, but that's not what our team is about."

Tracy overtook race leader Takuya Kurosawa on lap 62 -- the only on-track pass for the lead in the 82-lap race -- and stretched out his lead in the closing laps as Castro-Neves and Vasser waged a gripping battle for second place around the 11-turn, 1.968-mile street circuit.

"I was determined to make the outside pass in turn one until the last couple of laps," Vasser said of his duel with Castro-Neves. "I thought I could still catch Paul because my car was really fast. I was sure if I could get around Helio, I would be able to catch up to Paul.

"In the last couple of laps, I started thinking, 'OK, am I going to risk 14 points (for finishing third) to gain two (points)?' I still took a look a few times, but it just wasn't going to work because (Castro-Neves) was doing a great job in maintaining position and keeping me behind him."

With his third-place finish, Vasser moved from fourth to second in series points and trails Tracy by eight points. The Target/Chip Gansssi Racing driver's run also marked the best finish for a Toyota in CART competition.

Both Tracy and Vasser indicated that they intend to remain in the hunt for the championship despite the prevailing opinion that their younger teammates -- Franchitti and Juan Montoya, respectively -- were the leading contenders for the title.

"These fat-cat team owners were writing us off and look where these hot-shots are right now," Tracy joked.

Defending CART champion Montoya finished 19th Sunday after his engine overheated forcing him out of the race after 48 laps, and is 20th in points.

Franchitti, who lost the 1999 CART title to Montoya on a tiebreaker, dropped out 23 laps into the race after making contact with Michel Jourdain Jr. Franchitti is 17th in the championship after two races.

"We've got our stuff together now ... and you're going to see a lot more of Jimmy Vasser on the podium and in the position to win races this year," Vasser, the 1996 series champion, said.

Pole-sitter Gil de Ferran, who led the first 30 laps of the race, finished seventh.

There were six lead changes among seven drivers. The average speed of the race was 82.626 mph and there were six caution periods for 20 laps.