Tracy finally goes faster in Indy practice

Friday, May 17, 2002 | 9:58 a.m.

Paul Tracy of Las Vegas had arguably his best day of the month so far in preparation Thursday for the 86th Indianapolis 500.

Tracy's speed of 224.870 miles per hour in the Team Green 7-Eleven Dallara/ Chevrolet was 11th fastest on a windy day of practice and fourth fastest among unqualified cars.

A few of the problems facing the Team Green crew seem to have been overcome, according to Tracy.

"We've brought our corner speeds up now but we're pretty slow on the straights because we have a lot of downforce on," he said. "We have to trim it out (today) or Saturday and see what happens.

"At the end of the day, we were the fastest car on the track. Now I don't know if that means anything in terms of qualifying on Sunday, but it is a positive."

Al Unser Jr., a part-time resident of Henderson, logged a lap at 223.898; Las Vegas' Jimmy Vasser was at 223.516; Henderson's Richie Hearn ran 222.090 in a Sam Schmidt Motorsports Dallara/Chevrolet; John de Vries of Las Vegas was clocked at 221.672; and Anthony Lazzaro continued to struggle and ran 212.248 in the other Sam Schmidt Motorsports entry.

For Vasser, it was a good day of practice in the Miller Lite/Rahal Letterman Racing Dallara.

"We had a great day today," Vasser said. "We were pretty happy yesterday but I couldn't get real close to other cars on our full-tank runs.

"We made some big theoretical platform changes and I could really get close to other cars, really get up on their gearbox. I could make some passes today. I'm much more optimistic about our racecar today."

For rookie de Vries, it was a better day with a lot of work left to do.

"It's coming a little better, I think," de Vries said. "Today we figured out where we could pick up some speed and kind of where our problems were.

Lazzaro ran only 14 laps in early practice, and Unser had 29 before ending his practice day.

Unser, Vasser and Hearn all have qualified for the 500 while Lazzaro, Tracy and de Vries have not.

The fastest among the non-qualified cars Thursday were all from the A.J. Foyt stable, led by Greg Ray at 227.291 in the A.J. Foyt Racing/Harrah's Dallara. Airton Dare followed Ray on the speed chart by at 226.484 and Donnie Beechler at 225.431.

Practice continues through Saturday, with the final qualifications and Bump Day on Sunday.