Slow burn

Thursday, Aug. 19, 2004 | 10:04 a.m.

How fast is fast enough?

If you're Paul Tracy and the subject is Champ Car racing at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, 203 miles per hour doesn't even come close.

Tracy, the defending Champ Car World Series champion and a Las Vegas resident, was not the least bit pleased with the aerodynamic package Champ Car officials developed for the Sept. 25 race at LVMS.

"It's far too easy the way it is," Tracy said of the aero package he and 14 other drivers tested Wednesday at LVMS. "You could take, really, anybody out there and go flat out. Hopefully, they'll come up with some type of a compromise.

"I would like to see us run in the 215 to 220 range."

Bruno Junqueira posted the fastest lap of the seven-hour test session at 203.482 mph.

Tracy, a 14-year veteran of the open-wheel series, said he believes that Champ Car officials are too concerned with trying to match the rival Indy Racing League's close, side-by-side racing.

"If they wanted to achieve having an IRL race, then why not just join up with them?" Tracy said after running a top speed of 202.073 mph during Wednesday's test. "We have the package that we have and we should show what our package can do ... show what they're capable of -- not dumb them down and be like the IRL.

"I don't understand that mentality; if you're trying to separate yourself from the IRL and be something different, then why try to copy it?"

Las Vegas resident Jimmy Vasser, a 13-year Champ Car veteran and the 1996 series champion, was more diplomatic than the outspoken Tracy.

"It's certainly more (rear) wing than you would normally run on a track like this, but maybe it'll produce a better race for the fans and maybe it's too early for us to pass judgment on it," Vasser said.

"Initially, I thought maybe a full speedway aero package -- what we would normally run at a similar track -- would have been what we should run here. But this is what they came up with and it's my job to deal with it."

John Lopes, executive vice president of operations for the Champ Car World Series, said the series' engineers tried to strike a balance between competition and safety in developing the aero package for the Las Vegas race -- the only superspeedway race on the 2004 Champ Car schedule.

"In layman's terms, the package is a combination of a speedway aero package with road-course wings," Lopes said while observing Wednesday's test session.

"The drivers always want to go faster and if we were to let these cars run at full song, I dare say they would probably be close to 230 miles an hour out there but we just don't feel that that's the best thing to do in terms of putting on a great race."

Tracy said he would liked to have seen series officials come out with an aero package for Las Vegas that was similar to what was used in 2002 -- when the series was known as CART -- at the 1.5-mile Rockingham Motor Speedway in Corby, England. Kenny Brack won the pole for that race with a qualifying speed of 213.763 mph.

"We ran a package in England the year before last ... and it was a mile-and-a-half track and we were averaging like 217 -- that's what I feel the right package is," he said. "We've got the (rear) wing stood up right now like you'd run on a road course.

"'I've been driving these cars a long time and I want to feel the car on the edge and I want to have to get the car to work. You don't want to feel like a robot in a car; I want to be able to feel things, feel what it's supposed to do and we're pretty much a long ways off that."

Patrick Carpentier of Las Vegas said that he too wished the Champ Cars would be a little faster on the 1.5-mile LVMS oval, but he thought the aero package would result in an "exciting" race.

"I think the race is going to be fantastic because it's going to be a close race," he said

"I think what's more important is the show that the fan is going to watch and you'll still see a lot of speed from the cars. I was worried that we were just going to be flat (out) and nothing was going to be happening through the whole race."

Vasser agreed.

"I think we can put on a good show with this package," Vasser said. "You'll be able to run up on people's gearbox through the corner and you'll probably get a little slipstream down the straightaway so I think you'll see some passing.

"This year, lately, they've been saying it's going to difficult to pass but we've been having more overtaking on street circuits than we've ever had."