Tracy gets part-time Dragon deal

Penske, son of Tracy's long-time CART Champ Car team boss Roger Penske, has kept his team alive after separating from former partner Gil de Ferran, who had been unable to find funding to keep their De Ferran Dragon joint operation going despite signing Tony Kanaan for 2011.

After Long Beach, Tracy will honour his already-announced deal with Dreyer & Reinbold Racing for the Indianapolis 500, before rejoining Dragon for Texas, Toronto, Edmonton and Sears Point.

"Expectations for Long Beach are that I expect nothing and will give everything, just like Dragon Racing will for me," Tracy wrote in a blog for Racer.

"We've had no testing, but it's still a street course where there can be a lot of carnage, a lot of pit strategy, crazy things happening... and it's a track that since they changed it to the current configuration, I've won three times so it's not like I don't know my way around.

"The first time I won it, on the previous configuration in 1993, was for someone with the surname Penske..."

Tracy has not had a full-season drive since Champ Car was merged into the IndyCar Series in 2008, but has managed a handful of appearances each year since then, racing for KV and Dreyer & Reinbold last season.

He is optimistic of extending his Dragon deal to encompass further events.

"I'd love to do places like Milwaukee where I had three wins, Loudon because I've always been pretty good on short ovals, and Baltimore street race where everyone's starting from scratch because it's new," Tracy wrote. "I guess [Las] Vegas is another one we'd like to do; (pity I'm not eligible for the $5m).

"But anyway, now we have a programme up and running, we can build on that because we have something to go sell and try to fill in the blanks."