Paul Tracy will be making his return to NASCAR in 2027, returning to the iconic Canadian Tire Motorsports Park circuit with Reaume Bros Racing. Paul Tracy’s legacy has become muddy over the past few years because of his own antics. The Canadian open-wheel champion has always been known for his incredibly aggressive driving and outspoken and honest personality.
This made him polarizing at his peak and after his stint in SRX, which saw him cause more incidents than anyone else in the series. As he drove cars he wasn’t familiar with on tracks he wasn’t familiar with at his age. Mix that with his aggressive style, and he’d be banned from the series following a multi-car accident he started that saw multiple drivers speak up against him. For many newer fans, this is all they’ve seen of his driving, painting a poor picture of the man who waited for years but did finally get his championship. At one point, he proved he was one of the very best in the world.
Always the bridesmaid and never the bride.
For years, Paul Tracy was always the bridesmaid and never the bride. He’d always win a few races a year and find himself poking his nose in the title fight and annoying the contenders, plus fans in the process, usually. However, it seemed that his over-aggressive mistakes would prevent him from ever becoming a champion. Until 2003, that is!
The year before, Paul Tracy was involved in the most significant controversy of his career, a notable statement, given his history. At the 2002 Indy 500, he battled Penske’s Hélio Castroneves for the lead in the closing laps of the year’s most important race.
Paul Tracy made an outside pass to take the lead from the Brazilian. Immediately afterward, a wreck occurred behind them. Because the caution came out so late in the race, everyone knew it would end then and there. So Paul Tracy, for a moment, thought he won the most prestigious and important race in all of motorsports, the Indy 500.
That’s when controversy started, as the IRL did not go by the order when the yellow flag flew, like the broadcast suggested they would. But instead, it went back to the order of the lap before giving Helio the win and robbing Paul Tracy of his greatest accomplishment. Paul Tracy, always honest, immediately spoke of conspiracy, and many fans agreed. Because of the politics and bitterness behind the CART and IRL split.
In the 90s, the sanctioning body behind the Indy 500 event and the sanctioning body behind the IndyCar Series, which races in it, split after many tense disagreements. The Indy 500 would be raced by the IRL series, and many of the former teams went to make CART. A series that at its early peak was generally more popular than the IRL series, except when May came around, and it was time for Indy. After CART failed to make its own grand event, many CART teams demanded entry into the Indy 500. This was eventually granted.
Now Helio was on an IRL team while Paul Tracy came from CART to do the classic Indy 500 one-off. Leading many to believe that the IRL took a chance to give the famous race to one of its own rather than a CART invader. Including Paul Tracy and the man who owned Team Green and therefore who owned the team Paul Tracy was driving for, who also thought for a moment he made history for one magical moment. Although Indy itself has constantly refuted this, and there’s no conclusive evidence that goes one way or the other.
Which made what happened next pretty ironic and must’ve made Paul livid. After 2002, Team Green announced it had merged with Andretti, an IRL team, and would compete in the IRL in 2003. But Paul Tracy would not be going with them, no way. Instead, he’d stay in CART because he’s more motivated than ever now to get the CART title. A title the IRL couldn’t steal from him, but one he had failed to capture all on his own several times.
Paul Tracy’s CART Triumph!
After the IRL robbed him of the one trophy he always wanted to win, he’d go for the only other trophy he always wanted to win, and that the IRL couldn’t steal from him: the CART championship. Paul Tracy had won plenty in CART, but a title had never fallen his way. The closest he ever got was the three third-place finishes he had earned, which, heading into 2003, had served as his career high in points. But 2003 would be different.
The Canadian driver signed with the Canadian team Forsythe and, for the first time, took up cycling to lose weight and improve his fitness before the season began. And all that would pay off immediately. Paul Tracy won the season opener in St. Petersburg after leading 71 of 105 laps. Paul Tracy, as a matter of fact, won the first three races of the season, creating a massive points cushion for himself to start the season.
Something that would be easy for most drivers to maintain, but now we see Paul Tracy hadn’t yet won a CART title in his nine seasons as a CART driver before this year. His major inconsistency. He failed to secure a top-ten finish in the next three races, allowing title rival Bruno Junqueira to catch up and pass him in points after Milwaukee.
When His Form Picked Up!
Paul Tracy’s form picked up once again, though. He got on the podium for each of the following three races and even earned pole for Portland. This time, he’d carry all that positive momentum into the most important race of the year for him, which was in his home country of Canada at Toronto.
There, he earned another pole and left the field behind in a cloud of dust for the whole race. He led every lap en route to another victory. When CART returned to his homeland this time in Vancouver, he earned pole again and led a race-high 77 laps to earn another victory in Canada.
But Junqueira had been on his tail the whole time, and when Paul Tracy crashed out of the race at Road America, Junqueira went on to win and gain back the points lead. But this was the closest he’d ever been to finally winning that championship. So he wasn’t going to let it slip from his fingers again. So he gathered all the fight he had to have a great end to his season.
After Road America, Tracy won at Mid-Ohio two races late, earning back-to-back top ten finishes. He won the Gran Premio Telmex Gigante in Mexico City from pole position after another dominating display of racing. This also clinched him a victory in all three of North America’s mainland countries.
Tracy won his first CART championship and the Vanderbilt Cup by finishing 13th in the wet-weather Lexmark Indy 300, while Junqueira crashed with ten laps remaining. Making the exact kind of mistake Paul Tracy had used to lose so many titles. Making this one all the sweeter, thanks a bunch for reading!
Image via IndyCar.com