Tracy, Gaughan regain points leads

Monday, Aug. 11, 2003 | 10:17 a.m.

Las Vegas drivers Paul Tracy and Brendan Gaughan regained the points lead in their respective series over the weekend and Tracy did so in dominating fashion.

Tracy earned the maximum 23 points by being the fastest qualifier on Friday, winning the pole on Saturday and winning Sunday's CART Grand Prix of Mid-Ohio at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, Ohio. Tracy holds a 20-point lead over Bruno Junqueira, who took 13th and scored no points, with six races remaining in the season.

On Friday night, Gaughan drove his Orleans Racing Dodge truck to a fifth-place finish in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Nashville Superspeedway and holds a seven-point lead over Travis Kvapil, who finished ninth, with 10 races remaining.

Although Tracy recorded his career-best sixth victory of the season, he seemed to be more pleased that he and Team Player's teammate Patrick Carpentier, also of Las Vegas, combined for the first 1-2 finish in team history.

"A fantastic and historic day for Team Player's," said Tracy, who led 69 of the 92 laps. "Finishing 1-2 is just a really great feeling, especially heading to Montreal for the next race, where we'll try to go 3-for-3 in Canada."

Tracy won the first two Canadian Champ Car races of the season, in Toronto and Vancouver. On Sunday, his biggest challenges were holding off a hard-charging Carpentier and battling lapped traffic. "It was an extremely tough race," Tracy said. "I was going as quick as I could in mid-stint and Patrick just kept catching up to me. Fortunately, we were able to turn it up a bit and build a lead after the last pit because Patrick really had a fast car out there.

"The thing I was most concerned about during the race was making sure that I didn't get tangled up with (lapped cars). I lost about five or six seconds at one point behind Tiago (Monteiro) and that cut into the lead but other than that, everything went absolutely perfect. Team Player's gave me a terrific car and the pit stops were flawless."

While Tracy knocked Junqueira out of the lead, he said he was not counting out the young Brazilian driver.

"We can't afford to have a bad race from here on out," Tracy said. "The championship is going to be a fight to the end.

"I don't expect Bruno to lay over and say, 'I can't beat their team.' He proved last week that he can have those type of (winning) weekends. Once you get on a roll, it's hard to stop it sometimes."

Las Vegas residents Alex Tagliani and Jimmy Vasser finished sixth and 15th.

Las Vegas native Kurt Busch finished 12th in Sunday's NASCAR Winston Cup Series race at Watkins Glen International and remained eighth in the points standings.

In Madison, Ill., part-time Henderson resident Al Unser Jr. was involved in a two-car accident on pit road 42 laps into Sunday's Emerson Indy 250 Indy Racing League event at Gateway International Raceway and was forced to retire. Unser remains sixth in the IndyCar Series points standings.

Anton Julian, a tire changer for Unser's Kelley Racing team, was struck in the pits during the incident and was airlifted to Saint Louis University Hospital, Julian was listed in fair condition Sunday evening with a concussion and a right knee injury and was to remain hospitalized for further evaluation.