Friday, Sept. 24, 2004 | 10:11 a.m.
Schedule for this weekend's NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and Champ Car World Series races at Las Vegas Motor Speedway:
TODAY
11 a.m. -- Spectator gates open
12:15-2 p.m. -- Champ Car practice
4:30-6 p.m. -- Champ Car qualifying
8-9:30 p.m. -- Champ Car practice
SATURDAY
10:30 a.m. -- Spectator gates open
10:30 a.m.-1 p.m. -- NCTS practice
3:30 p.m. -- NCTS qualifying
5:15-5:45 p.m. -- Champ Car warmup
6:30 p.m. -- NCTS driver introductions
7:29 p.m. -- NCTS Las Vegas 350 (146 laps, 219 miles)
8:45 p.m. -- Grid Champ Cars
10 p.m. -- CCWS Bridgestone 400 Presented by Corona (166 laps, 249 miles)
After winning seven races, six poles and racking up a total of 10 podium finishes en route to his first Champ Car season championship last year, Paul Tracy was the preseason favorite to dominate the series again in 2004.
It hasn't turned out that way for Tracy, a Las Vegas resident. Heading into Saturday night's Bridgestone 400 Presented by Corona at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Tracy has two victories in 11 races and stands third in the championship -- 60 points out of first place -- with three races remaining.
But Tracy said he doesn't consider the season, his second with Forsythe Championship Racing, a disappointment.
"We've had terrible luck this year -- whether it be red flags coming out in the middle of a qualifying run or things breaking on the car; just little things," Tracy said. "Everything kind of went the way we wanted it to go last year, for the most part, and this year, every time we've had an opportunity to close the gap a little bit, something has happened.
"There have been a few disappointments but we've been competitive throughout the whole year (and) we've run at the front the whole year ... things just haven't gone our way. I know it hasn't been for a lack of trying."
In fact, Tracy -- who is the Champ Car leader among active drivers with 28 victories and 21 poles -- said his penchant for trying too hard at times has not worked in his favor in 2004 as it did a year ago.
"Bruno (Junqueira, second in the championship) hasn't been the fastest guy on the track but he has finished every race and he's still in contention," Tracy said, "so there are two ways of skinning a cat. We take, sometimes, a little bit more risk in terms of setup or on the racetrack and sometimes we pay for that."
Tracy also said team owner Gerald Forsythe's decision to field three cars this season may have stretched the team's personnel a little too thin. Forsythe also fields car for Las Vegan Patrick Carpentier and Mexico's Rodolfo Lavin.
"We expanded to three cars and maybe that has hurt us a little bit," Tracy said. Expanding to three cars spread a lot of the crew guys a lot thinner. We'll probably be back to two cars next year and we can all get fully focused again."
Tracy, who opened his championship season with three consecutive victories, got started on the right foot this year by winning the season opener in Long Beach. That would prove to be the start of a roller-coaster ride for Tracy. He finished seventh the following race and then crashed out of the third race, in Milwaukee, after only 60 of 250 laps. He followed that with a third-place effort in Portland but came back the next race and again crashed out three laps into the Grand Prix of Cleveland.
By the time Tracy notched his second victory of the season, at the Molson Indy Vancouver, Newman/Haas Racing's Sebastien Bourdais already had built a hefty points lead by winning the previous three races.
Bourdais' once-comfortable lead has dwindled to 24 points over teammate Junqueira in the past two races, but Tracy was not able to gain much ground on the leader two weeks ago at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, where he finished two places behind Bourdais. While he acknowledges he faces an uphill battle in his quest to defend his championship, Tracy said he hasn't given up the fight.
"My thought coming into this race is we still have a shot at the championship," Tracy said. "Bourdais has had some rough luck the last few races; so have we but we still have a chance, so we're not going to give up. We're going to do the best we can this weekend to, obviously, try to win.
"A guy is going to be eliminated this weekend from the championship so we want to try to stay in the game as long as we can. We've had a couple weeks off and the team is ready to go and get out there and see what happens."
The aerodynamic package Champ Car officials have opted to use for Saturday's race is expected to lead to closer racing, but Tracy said he isn't concerned that the more inexperienced drivers on the circuit -- 9 of the 18 have competed in few if any superspeedway races -- may cause problems for the veteran drivers.
"The few guys that are going to run at the front have run a bunch of (superspeedway races)," Tracy said. "Everybody has been pretty good the last two seasons -- there haven't been any major problems with rookie drivers.
"We had a test here (last month) and they've made the package that we're going to drive fairly easy to drive. Overall, I think it's going to be a competitive race and it's going to be challenging to position yourself properly for the end of the race. The key, really, is just being there for the final shootout that's going to happen at the end."
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