On the Milwaukee mile oval
source: Team Players
Between them, Paul Tracy and Patrick Carpentier of Team
Player's have made 299 career starts in the Champ Car series, but their next
race in Milwaukee on Saturday will be unlike any of the others. This
time, they will be racing under the lights on the historic Milwaukee Mile oval,
as the Champ Car World Series stages its first-ever night race.
"I thought that I had done practically everything there is to do during my
years of racing, but this is another first," said Tracy, the defending
champion of the Milwaukee Mile 250, which he has won three times, matching Road
America as his most successful track. "It's going to be fun. It's going to
add to the whole aura of racing on one of the most fabled tracks in motor
sports."
Like his teammate, Carpentier is getting his first experience of night racing
"unless I raced under some street lamps when I was karting years ago," he
said jokingly. He expects that the Champ Car drivers will be able to quickly
adjust to the conditions, right from the first few laps of the Thursday night
practice session. The teams also have a practice session on Friday afternoon
before the evening qualifying session to set the grid for Saturday night's 250
lap race, the sixth event of the Champ Car World Series season.
Tracy regards the Milwaukee race not only as an opportunity to notch another
victory on an oval that he considers to be one of the best he has ever run on,
but as a chance to regain the form that he and Team Player's flashed in
winning the first three races of the season. Tracy is looking to open up a lead
in the drivers' standings, where he is currently locked in a tie with
Brazilian Bruno Junqueira with 66 points.