| | Associated Press
DETROIT -- Just when Paul Tracy thought it couldn't get any worse at the Tenneco Automotive Grand Prix of Detroit, it did.
Tracy, the CART FedEx Championship Series points leader, was excluded from the 84-lap race after he ran over the foot of his crewman Jeff Simon when he made a pit stop on lap 58.
Simon broke a toe on his left foot.
"We were running such a great car. We probably would have been third or fourth in the end result," said Tracy who had started in the 19th position and had worked his way up to seventh.
"But we were coming into the pits and it looked like Gil (de Ferran) was going to pull out in front of me. I tried to avoid him getting into the pits but I couldn't stop in the box and I ran into my guy."
The weekend started out on a wrong note when Tracy swerved into the tires and damaged his rear suspension during practice. That later cost him during first-round qualifying.
Saturday, he woke up sick. Then during qualifying he spun out again and never fully recovered during the session.
"There's still a long way to go this season," he said. "We're
competitive. We just have a black cloud sitting over the top of our
heads right now."
It is the third straight race that Tracy has received a pit road
safety violation. He also was cited at Milwaukee and Nazareth, Pa.
Dario's disaster
Dario Franchitti's race was decided by another driver's brake duct.
Franchitti, who was running in third place, began falling back into the field on lap 48. Finally on lap 57, he went into the pits and his crew determined that a brake duct had lodged in the front right suspension.
"The car was fine until the first pit stop," he said. "Then the problem started. I didn't know what happened and I couldn't see the broken part. I saw the temperatures go up because the piece was blocking the radiator. The car was terrible and I was just hanging on."
Franchitti, the defending race champion, had started the race on
the front row next to Juan Montoya. Despite falling as far back as
12th place, he finished fourth.
"I learned how to drive around the problem a little bit," he
said. "We are very lucky to finish fourth because we could have
ended up in the wall today."
Bye, bye third place
Christian Fittipaldi's chances at third place were finished when he was involved in the only multi-car accident on the 2.3-mile street course.
Fittipaldi was running in third when he and de Ferran were
attempting to pass the lapped car of Martin Blundell in turn 12.
Fittipaldi made contact with the right front tire of Blundell, lost
control of his car and gathered up Blundell and de Ferran while
sliding into the tire barrier.
"I would have been OK after Blundell touched me but Gil took me
out," said Fittipaldi who finished 19th. "Everything was under
control at that point. What pushed me into the tires was Gil. He
braked way too late and ran into the back of me. The car was
dreadful."
Mark your 2001 calendar
CART is getting close to finalizing its season schedule for 2001, and the slate will have changes of venue.
Interim CART president and CEO Bobby Rahal said the FedEx
championship series will not return to Homestead, Fla., in 2001
after racing there the past five seasons.
Earlier in the week, CART said it will not return to Dover
Downs' Gateway International Raceway near St. Louis in 2001. As
part of the announcement, CART added that it was negotiating with
Delaware-based Dover Downs Entertainment to develop racing
opportunities in nine cities: Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Denver, New
York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Francisco and Washington.
CART announced in April that it will make a first-ever stop in
Monterrey, Mexico, next spring.
"With the continued growth and interest in our racing series,
both domestically and overseas, we are faced with several difficult
scheduling decisions," Rahal said. "It is CART's belief that it
is in the best interest of our race series that we move in a
different direction as we prepare for next year."
Spark Plugs ...
With Helio Castroneves winning the race, Honda extended its temporary street circuit winning streak to 16 consecutive races.
The three-day attendance for the Grand Prix
was announced as 138,000, an increase from last year's total of
132,000.
Montoya, who led 59 laps, extended his series-leading
total to 541 -- more than 399 higher than the next highest driver,
de Ferran. | |
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