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©1998 SpeedCenter Internet Publishing, Inc. By Dan Proudfoot Paul Tracy's take on a nightmare CART season isthat daisies are about to start sprouting from theTeam Green manure. He returns to St. Louis, scene of his most recent win a year ago, for the 100th race of his careersounding as though he's ready to win again -- not necessarily the Motorola 300 this Sunday, but soon. "It has been more difficult to adjust to the newteam and the new car than I expected," the Canadian said in a teleconference yesterday. "I do feel I'm driving better than ever, but we've had rotten luck on top of everything else." Certainly the faltering championship campaign hasn't been exclusively Tracy's fault. In his best finishes, fifth in Japan and at Nazareth, slow pit stops caused by a fuel-filling problem cost him positions. Twice he was not knocked out by other drivers'attempted passes, Christian Fittipaldi in Long Beach and Gil de Ferran in the most recent race at Rio de Janeiro. Some, including team owner Barry Green, thought Tracy might have avoided being knocked out by de Ferran, but most observers blamed the Brazilian. "I feel we're stepping up, and that by mid-season we'll be closer to what we're capable of," Tracy said. "The way the Reynard feels in the seat of your pants is a lot different from the Penskes I drove for so many years. Setting the car up is pretty foreign to me, and driving it, I've had to change some of my habits." Barry Green's highly motivated crew hasn't had a winner since Jacques Villeneuve in 1995. Tony Cicale, the engineer who worked so well with Villeneuve, has left. Tracy's engineer, John Dick, has moved up from last year's Green test crew, and others are new to the team. "It has been a bigger adjustment than I expected getting used to the engineers and the crew," Tracy said. "Everybody is trying to figure out their position. But it's working, we are stepping up." A month ago, the repetition of poor pit stops threatened morale. "Well, we did have some problems," Tracy said. "But I was very, very happy in Rio with the one pit stop we had (before colliding with de Ferran). I came in sixth and went out in fourth. "CART is so competitive now. You can do your job on the track, but if the guys in the pits don't do theirs, you lose track position and it's really hard to re-pass. "The guys have been practising 50 pit stops per dayat the shop and they're really getting it down."Returning to St. Louis (Madison, Ill., actually) isa boost, although CART's ruling that all cars thisyear must be fitted with their superspeedway wingsmeans Tracy again will be a stranger to the track. "Right after Nazareth we went there to test, but wewere rained out. I'm told that now that they've takenaway our high-downforce wings, it's much different todrive. "Where last year going into Turn 1 was just touchthe brakes, this year it's hard braking and go down acouple of gears. Turns 3 and 4 for me in qualifyinglast year were wide open. Now it's pretty hard on thebrakes and down a gear. "Really, what you did there last year doesn'ttranslate." Source: Canada Online, used by permission | ||
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