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Tracy Dominates in Milwaukee

Paul Tracy was a dominant force in the third round of the Champ Car World Series at the Milwaukee Mile

The Canadian took the lead with a bold move around the outside of polesitter Jimmy Vasser early on and never looked back, fending off a brief challenge from AJ Allmendinger to score his first win since Vancouver last July.

"I have to thank my [Forsythe Championship Racing] crew," said Tracy. "My engineer Eric Zeto gave me a perfect car. In qualifying we made a small mistake on set-up, but after the warm-up this morning I knew we had a car to fight for the win."

Allmendinger doggedly kept the pressure on his former mentor but lost ground at the final pit stops, only to be handed an olive branch in the form of a late caution period that erased Tracy's five-second lead.

Tracy, however, is famous for his alacrity on cold tyres and left the field for dead at the restart, setting a new fastest lap of the race for good measure. Allmendinger had no response, but was happy to settle for a career-best second place finish.

"Paul was faster than me - that's basically what it came down to," the American acknowledged. "I think on old tyres we had something for him but on new tyres he was a missile. But RuSPORT did a great job. We needed a great run because we've had a bad start to the year."

Oriol Servia did a sterling job to finish third on his debut for Newman/Haas Racing, passing teammate and reigning Champion Sebastien Bourdais on a restart and then dispatching Justin Wilson when the Briton got caught up in some slower traffic.

"Before the race [Cristiano] da Matta told me, 'You'll see, things happen easier at Newman/Haas' and they did," enthused Servia. "The PacifiCare car was just going forward, forward, I was just a passenger!

"You know, I'm sure [the injured] Bruno [Junqueira] deserved a win, and I tried, but I think a podium is quite a good thing for us in my first race with the team and only two hours of practice before qualifying. I'm really grateful, really happy, and I hope we can build on this."

Wilson wasn't quite able to keep up with RuSPORT teammate Allmendinger on this occasion, but came home a strong fourth for the third consecutive race and trails Championship leader Bourdais by just seven points.

The Frenchman was left to lick his wounds after throwing away a likely fourth-place finish (he had passed Wilson deep in the second half of the race and was shadowing teammate Servia) with a speeding infraction at his final pit stop. The ensuing drive-through penalty cost him a lap and relegated him to sixth place.

Vasser was unable to capitalise on his first pole in three years and spent most of the afternoon chasing a decent balance on his PKV Racing Lola. The American was the last of the unlapped finishers in fifth.

Ryan Hunter-Reay crashed heavily on lap six, jarring his neck in a heavy rearward impact with the wall. He was reported to be awake and alert by Champ Car medical officials and has been taken to a local hospital for observation.

2005 Road Runner 225 at the Milwaukee Mile - Results:

CLASSIFIED:

Pos  Driver              Team                   Time
 1.  Paul Tracy          Forsythe Championship  1h45:01.259
 2.  A.J. Allmendinger   RuSPORT                +     3.369
 3.  Oriol Servia        Newman Haas            +     6.120
 4.  Justin Wilson       RuSPORT                +     6.859
 5.  Jimmy Vasser        PKV                    +     8.331
 6.  Sebastien Bourdais  Newman Haas            +    1 Lap
 7.  Mario Dominguez     Forsythe Championship  +    1 Lap
 8.  Ronnie Bremer       HVM, Inc.              +    1 Lap
 9.  Timo Glock          Rocketsports           +    2 Laps
10.  Alex Tagliani       Team Australia         +    3 Laps
11.  Cristiano da Matta  PKV                    +    4 Laps
12.  Nelson Philippe     Mi-Jack Conquest       +    5 Laps
13.  Marcus Marshall     Team Australia         +    5 Laps
14.  Ricardo Sperafico   Dale Coyne             +   10 Laps

NOT CLASSIFIED/RETIREMENTS:

Driver              Team                On Lap
Bjorn Wirdheim      HVM, Inc.            175
Andrew Ranger       Mi-Jack Conquest     126
Ryan Hunter-Reay    Rocketsports           6

Fastest Lap: Paul Tracy, 22.208s, on lap 221

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