Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: Tracy hopes to avoid another Miami roller coaster

Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2003 | 9:06 a.m.

Brian Hilderbrand covers motor sports for the Las Vegas Sun. His motor sports notebook appears Friday. He can be reached at bh@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4089.

After nearly a month-long layoff, Paul Tracy resumes his quest for his first CART Champ Car championship this weekend at the Grand Prix Americas on the streets of Miami.

The Las Vegas resident, who holds an 18-point lead over Bruno Junqueira with four races remaining, is hoping to have a less stressful race weekend than he did a year ago in Miami, when seemingly everything that could go wrong did.

"It should be interesting in Miami if we get the same kind of race weekend we had during our first visit there last year," said Tracy, who qualified 16th out of 18 cars a year ago. "Miami has been known to get some of those afternoon showers, and they just happened to come at the wrong time during Saturday qualifying and I ended up qualifying near the back of the grid.

"At times, it was a real adventure with the wind blowing coconuts onto the track. Then, on race day, I managed to make my way up from 16th and even led a few laps before being punted off the track late in the race -- while running third. It was quite a roller-coaster weekend."

The 1.15-mile street course also presented some problems for Tracy, who settled for a 12th-place finish in 2002.

"Miami can be a difficult ride -- especially if you aren't able to get much grip," he said. "But I'm not one to drive tentatively and with the championship on the line in each of the four races we have left, I'm going to try to continue to do everything I can to squeeze the most out of every lap.

"Overall, Team Player's has had a lot of success on street courses this year and there's no reason why that shouldn't continue this weekend in Miami."

Four of Tracy's series-leading six victories this season have come on street courses.

The CBS TV series will use this weekend's events as a backdrop for an episode to be broadcast in November and will feature the No. 12 American Spirit Team Johansson car, which is driven by Jimmy Vasser of Las Vegas.

The Mi-Jack/Conquest Racing and Rocketsports Racing teams also will be featured in the episode, which tentatively is scheduled to air on Nov. 10.

Schumacher, 34, said he is surprised that the 27-year-old Montoya and 23-year-old Raikkonen are pushing him so hard for the championship.

"I've said before that they will battle for the title one day," Schumacher said, "but I never thought they'd do it so soon.

"It will be time for me to (retire) when someone beats me in a very clear and undisputed way. It will happen one day, I am sure."

A spokeswoman for the team discounted a British report that quoted Sato as saying he expected to replace Villeneuve in Japan.

"As far as we are concerned, Jacques will be racing in Japan," a spokeswoman for the F1 team told the Reuters News Agency.

Kinser took third in the "A" feature while Lasoski finished 14th, allowing Kinser to extend his lead in the championship to 58 points.