Foyt hopes Tracy will stay on
AJ Foyt says he is keen for Paul Tracy to stay on with his team if this weekend's Milwaukee race goes well
The former Champ Car champion - who returned to the IndyCar Series for a one-off with KV Racing at Indianapolis and finished ninth - is deputising for Foyt's regular driver Vitor Meira after the Brazilian sustained two fractured vertebrae in a crash during the Indy 500.
At present the deal is for Milwaukee only, but both parties are keen to extend it if this weekend is a success.
"I'm going to talk to Paul and see what he really wants to do. Sure, we'd like to have him for all the races," said Foyt.
Tracy added: "Obviously I want to race as much as I can. I'm a race driver that wants to race and wants to win. And AJ is the same. So we'll see how this weekend goes and then go from there."
The Canadian has already committed to returning to KV for the Toronto and Edmonton events, and Foyt accepted that he might have to find a temporary substitute.
"When you make a commitment, you're a man of your word. That's the way I look at it," he said. "I respect Paul very highly for that. We're going to have to sit down and talk and see what we can do. I know he's committed for those two races. It might be for those two races, we'll have to try somebody else, then Paul will come back after that."
Foyt believes Tracy can make a big difference to his team's form.
"I watched Tracy race through the years. He gives 110 per cent," said the legendary team boss. "That's the type of driver we need to beat Penske and all the rest of the guys.
"You can't go out there, lay dormant and think you're going to beat them. You have to have somebody that wants to challenge them. I think he's got the same idea I do. We want to get back in Victory Circle very bad. We're going to work hard to do it, and he's the guy that can do it for me."
Tracy said his aim for Milwaukee, where he won four times in Champ Car, was just to give the Foyt team a lift.
"My goal this weekend is to give the team their first good finish of the year, to get the momentum up and get the spirits up," he said. "They've had some hard breaks this year."
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