Tracy taking it to the limit

 
Going for the gusto is just driver's personality
 
By Robert Morales, Staff writer
Long Beach Press Telegram
April 12, 2007
 
LONG BEACH - Paul Tracy figures that if one is going to race a car at speeds reaching 190 mph, one should always go for the gusto.

It's a credo that has ruffled feathers, caused crashes and resulted in several feast-or-famine seasons for Tracy. Along the way, he has earned a reputation as the bad-boy of Champ Car. But he has also earned the respect of his peers.

"There is personality and there is the driver," said Sebastien Bourdais, the three-time defending series champ. "And, obviously, he is a great driver, no doubt about it. He makes some bad calls sometimes and he's the first to admit it cost him quite a few races and quite a few championships, but that's his nature. He's always going to be trying and pushing, sometimes too hard. Nevertheless, he has been super consistent over the years and it's quite remarkable."

Yes, Tracy pushes hard. He pushed very hard back at the end of the 1998 season, when he got into an accident with Michael Andretti. The chief steward thought it egregious, and Tracy was suspended for the first race of 1999, an unprecedented move. Tracy was also fined that season and put on probation for unjustifiable risk, and he was fined for improper behavior during an argument in the pits

in Houston with his boss, Team KOOL Green owner Barry Green.

Tracy, never shy, voiced his displeasure at the suspension over the Andretti incident, but he was not fazed once he was back on the track. He missed an entire event and still finished third in the series that 1999 season, winning three races.

Tracy won the series title in 2003, getting seven victories and six poles. He has the most victories (30) of any active Champ Car driver, and the most poles with 25.

Tracy, who will be competing this weekend in the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, the second Champ Car stop of the season, has surely had a wild, but successful career.

"I think I just have my own personality and my own way that I present myself as me," said Tracy, 38. "I'm not trying to fit into a box that a sponsor wants me to fit into. Early on in my career I had to play along with the party line and the sponsor line.

"About 1995 I kind of broke out of my shell and just acted like who I am, instead of just this corporate kind of, you know, dressed in a suit and tie. It's not me. So I just try to be myself."

Being himself has no doubt cost Tracy several victories and probably a couple of series titles over the past 16 years. For example, in 2002, Tracy had five top-5 finishes, but did not finish 10 of the 19 races. In 2005, he looked good for the series title with two wins and three poles early, but he faltered late with more incomplete races, finishing fourth in the standings.

All because of his racing personality. And, as Bourdais said, Tracy is the first to admit that.

"I would probably say some of the decisions I have made that have cost me overall positions in the championship were because I was racing first and foremost to win, and second is not good enough," said Tracy, of Ontario, Canada. "There are a lot of drivers who will play the points and second is good enough that day.

"I'm not somebody that in my overall personality looks at the big picture; I just want to win. Even if I'm second, I'm not happy with second. I want to get in front of that guy that's right there. And I've taken chances like that and it's cost me, you know, where you didn't finish a race, when you could have had a second, or you could have had a third or you could have had a fourth, but you ended up with a 17th.

"That's just the way I drive. That's the way my dad instilled in me how to drive. It's just the way I am. Some drivers are not like that."

Tracy's father, Tony, was not a driver. He was a painter with little money, but he sponsored his son from the time he was racing go-karts in 1984 until he raced in the Indy Lights series in 1990.

When Tracy joined the Champ Car circuit in 1991, he took with him some advice.

"Some of the races we would go to when I was young, my dad would tell me, `It's more important that you get noticed than where you finished. You put on a show, people are going to remember who put on a show rather than who actually won the race,' " Tracy said. "So that is kind of the way I've always driven. I drive full out all the time, from the first lap of practice until the checkered flag comes out. I put everything out there and that has probably cost me positions and cost me wins and cost me positions in the championship, but that's just the way my dad taught me."

Justin Wilson, a rising star in Champ Car, said he appreciates Tracy and would not want him to change.

"His racing personality is, he's pretty aggressive," Wilson said. "But I've always found, hard but fair. And that's how I love to race.

"I like racing with Paul and so far it's always pushed me right to the limit and I feel like I push back. I have a lot of respect for Paul. I like the way he is on track and I like the way he is off track. I get a lot of fun out of him like that. I think most people do."

Chances are, rookie Simon Pagenaud did not get much joy out of being chewed out by Tracy last weekend in Las Vegas. Tracy was unhappy that Pagenaud needlessly held him up on a qualifying lap. The NBC telecast Sunday ran a delayed feed that showed Tracy giving Pagenaud the business. One commentator then said that Tracy likes to get in people's heads.

Tracy, however, said that not only has he mellowed since winning the title in 2003, he does not confront someone unless there is good reason.

"It's a two-way street and I just let him know that, `Hey, if you are going to play that, I am going to play back,' " Tracy said.

No question, Tracy has plenty of fire in his belly. Just ask his Forsythe Championship Racing teammate, Mario Dominguez. It was Dominguez who took out Tracy in an accident at last year's Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, denying Tracy any chance at his fifth win here.

"He has always proven through the years to be aggressive," Dominguez said. "He's certainly a guy people always have to look out for. It's good fun to watch out there because you never know what he's going to do."

What Tracy wants to do right now is put last season behind him. He had no wins and finished sixth in the series, but this year he got off to a good start in Las Vegas, finishing third.

"People were saying, `You know, Paul, you had a bad season last year and things didn't go well and maybe you're too old,' " Tracy said. "I think I've erased that notion. We came out, first race, qualified on the front row. We were on the pole the first day, we led the race. We had a pit stop problem refueling the car, but we rallied all the way back to the field and finished third.

"My goal this season is to finish every race as well as I can and race hard."

Hard is the only way Tracy knows how to race.