Paul Tracy is angry. Still.
The exasperation bubbles close to the surface. Just a little nick and it comes flowing out. On Twitter. In interviews. On the bike he’s used to drop 35 pounds in the last year.
The 41-year-old Toronto native doesn’t quite understand why he’s the winningest open-wheel driver without a full-time ride. Still thinks he edged Helio Castroneves to win the 2002 Indy 500. Wants badly to put together one last run at glory.
“It’s just frustrating to sit back and watch,” Tracy said. “Obviously I know my best years are probably behind me. Obviously I’m not going to be racing forever.”
There’s still time, but not much. Figuring a part-time job is better than no job at all, he eagerly accepted an offer from KV Racing Technology to drive in this year’s Indy 500 and a couple of road races in Canada. He finished ninth at the Brickyard last year, his first start at the 2.5-mile oval since his controversial second-place finish in 2002.
It was solid, but not good enough for the uber-competitive Tracy. He’s running out of shots, and he knows it. When team co-owner Jimmy Vassar asked for advice on whom to bring in to call the 500, Tracy didn’t hesitate: Barry Green.
Yes, the same Barry Green that Tracy used to drive for, the same Barry Green that Tracy once got into an altercation with during a race. The same Barry Green who jumped at a chance to serve as the race strategist for the talented if admittedly temperamental Tracy.
“I think I remember mostly the good times,” Green said.
Their last race together was not one of them.
Tracy was battling Helio Castroneves for the lead late in the 2002 Indy 500 when the caution light came on. Tracy has long maintained he was ahead of Castroneves at the time. Race officials, however, ruled Castroneves still had the edge, and the affable Brazilian headed to Victory Lane to drink the milk, leaving Tracy fuming.
To be honest, he’s still not over it. In the news release announcing Green’s arrival, Tracy proudly proclaimed, “Barry called every one of my races and called all of my race wins including winning the 2002 Indianapolis 500.”
The wording was intentional. The same release had Tracy pointing out that he and Green had “unfinished business” in the 500.
“Deep down, we know what happened there,” he said.
The duo have legitimate hopes of writing a different ending this time.
Tracy was competitive at Indy last spring, not bad for a driver who hadn’t driven with any sort of regularity since 2007. He was one of two KV Racing Technology cars to crack the top 10 in the 500 a year ago, leaving him optimistic he’s not going to be out there just clicking off laps at the back of the pack.
“With the engineering staff Jimmy has put together and with Paul in the car, I think we’ve got a good shot,” Green said.
The race has evolved quite a bit since 2002, but don’t expect Green to be playing catch-up. He still does some of his race calculations longhand, no calculators please, though he insists he’ll be in constant contact with the crew chief and the tech guys to figure out how the car is performing and how to get to the front.
Besides, there’s at least one person Green knows he can count on for feedback, whether he asks for it or not.
“(Paul) knows it well,” he said. “He had a good setup last year. I think the team will build on that. I’m only interested in coming back if they’re serious . . . The driver has got to be serious, too, and I don’t think anybody doubts that.”
Tracy is so serious he’s been on a frantic diet the last two months trying to get into shape for his return to racing. He was filming a show for the Speed Channel earlier this year when he saw some of the raw footage. The video evidence of his bulging waistline served as a wake-up call.
Thanks to gruelling bike rides and a renewed commitment to training, Tracy has dropped 35 pounds. He feels better, and he looks better, key ingredients for success on the track and in boardrooms as he tries to lure enough sponsors to get a full-time ride.
It’s not easy. He’s been an outspoken critic of the system, lamenting the lack of North American drivers on the continent’s only major open wheel circuit.
The economic downturn hasn’t helped matters. Tracy has enlisted a small army in search of sponsorship money. He’s got enough to drive in Indy, Edmonton and Toronto. He’s hoping to run at Watkins Glen too. That eats up his July, but as of now that leaves him on the outside of the season’s final six races.
“We’re turning over every stone and looking around every corner and looking through every bush, but it’s difficult,” he said.
So difficult he doesn’t even bother watching the races.
A Twitter fanatic, his tweets are laced with sarcasm.
“If I had a $ for every person that said I should be racing long beach, I would have enough to do it,” he tweeted on April 16, two days before the street race in southern California.
He showed up at Long Beach anyway to announce he was going to run in Indy, then did a series of interviews but didn’t stick around for the race.
Tracy plans on being there at the end on the last Sunday in May, alongside the owner who helped put him on the map.
“I called Barry and said, ‘hey Elroy it’s Jake, I’m putting the band back together, we are on a mission from god!!” Tracy tweeted when Green agreed to come on board.
It’s a mission they hope ends in Victory Lane.