Bourdais’ eyes on the prize

Thursday, Sept. 22, 2005 | 9:32 a.m.

Simply put, last year's inaugural Champ Car World Series event at Las Vegas Motor Speedway was the most exciting race ever held on the 1.5-mile superspeedway.

Sebastien Bourdais and Newman/Haas Racing teammate Bruno Junqueira ran side-by-side and nose-to-tail at better than 205 miles per hour during the final 20 laps and swapped the lead six times in the final nine laps before Bourdais nipped Junqueira by .066 seconds -- literally, in the blink of an eye -- at the finish line.

While the victory was a memorable one for those sitting in the grandstands, it was one Bourdais said he would rather not relive Saturday night when the Champ Car World Series returns to LVMS for the Hurricane Relief 400.

"I'm not too excited to try and do that again," Bourdais said of the close racing he experienced a year ago. "It's just really nerve-wracking."

In fact, Bourdais used the term "scary" to describe the race because he said the drivers' skills are taken out of the equation here because they never have to lift off the throttle.

"I think it's a fun race, it's just the way we do it, with as much downforce as we have and the way that it's completely flat, it doesn't make a whole lot of difference between cars," Bourdais said. "(That) leads to the type of racing that the driver doesn't have a whole lot of input in -- and that's when it becomes scary because that means you can have pretty average drivers up front ... and that's when sometimes it becomes iffy."

Bourdais, a 26-year-old from Le Mans, France, said he would have felt even less comfortable had he not been racing side-by-side with his teammate at the time. Junqueira has been sidelined since getting injured in a crash during the Indianapolis 500 in May and has been replaced by veteran driver Oriol Servia.

"I don't know if I'd want to do it with just anyone," Bourdais said. "I think I'd be nervous to do it with anyone other than Bruno -- or Oriol now. You know how difficult and dangerous it can get out there so you don't really want to be side-by-side for 20-something laps.

"It was tough; I had serious thoughts about backing off at some point -- especially with the championship situation -- but once you're in the car, you just can't do that so you just have to keep going."

The victory in Las Vegas last year was the sixth of the season for Bourdais, who added one more win and clinched the series title by 28 points over Junqueira and gave team owners Paul Newman and Carl Haas a 1-2 finish in the championship.

This year, Bourdais and Servia are poised for another 1-2 finish in the points for Newman/Haas Racing. After 10 of 14 races, Bourdais has four victories and holds a 61-point edge over Servia and a 65-point margin over Paul Tracy.

"We are completely focused on getting the best results for the McDonald's and PacifiCare teams at the last four races," Bourdais said. "The challenges are diverse since the last four races will be a combination of one superspeedway, one road course and two street races -- one of which we have never competed on.

"We are going to take each challenge one at a time and try to bring the team their second one-two finish in the championship."

To do that, he said, will take the same type of effort he put forth last season when he finished in the top three in 10 of the 14 races.

"It's all about consistency -- it was the case last year and you can't afford to drop off once," Bourdais said.