ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Paul Tracy was the biggest name race fans and drivers hoped to see in an IndyCar after last month’s unification. The 39-year-old driver from Canada wants a ride in the series and has talked to Vision Racing about a ride.
But his contract with Champ Car team owner Gerry Forsythe prohibits Tracy from racing for any other team even though after the April 19 Long Beach Grand Prix, Forsythe Racing will be closing its doors.
The team announced last month it would not join the IndyCar Series, but would not allow Tracy to leave, continuing to pay him $2 million for this season.
Tracy’s lawyer, however, believes by not competing in the first IndyCar race in the unified era at Homestead-Miami Speedway last week, Forsythe’s contract has become null and void.
Tracy was reached by telephone last week and expressed his interest and desire for an IndyCar ride but for legal reasons cannot go into detail.
“My lawyer says the contract is voided, but Forsythe is holding me to it,” Tracy said. “If this goes to court, it would take two or three years for it to be settled.
“I don’t want to watch any more races on television; I want to be in them.”

• With nine new drivers in the IndyCar Series, some of the regular drivers admit they still need a scorecard in order to tell the newcomers apart.
But in Helio Castroneves’s case, he gets confused by his own teammate.
“I still think Ryan Briscoe sometimes is Sam Hornish,” Castroneves said, referring to the driver that has moved on to NASCAR this season. “For me, I have no idea who is who except the guys who kept the same colors on their cars. It’s interesting.”

• IndyCar officials laid down the law to Tony Kanaan for refusing to enter pit lane for the final restart of last Saturday night’s race at Homestead-Miami Speedway when his IndyCar was running on three wheels.
Kanaan was the race leader when he clipped the crashed car driven by Ernesto Viso with seven laps to go in the race.
IndyCar officials let Kanaan continue around the track at pace car speed, but wanted him to pull off for the restart.
Kanaan took the green flag and that stacked up the group of cars behind him. He would get black-flagged and pulled into the pits on the following lap.
On Friday, Kanaan was told to park his car for 30 minutes in the first practice session to serve his penalty for last Saturday’s incident.

• KV Racing Technology co-owner Kevin Kalkhoven was involved in a skiing accident a couple of days before the Honda Grand Prix of St Petersburg.
Kalkhoven broke four ribs, punctured a lung and had a concussion. He was in a tremendous amount of pain at the track, but refused to stay at home and flew into St Petersburg, Fla., late Saturday night.

• Although the IndyCar chassis and engines are unfamiliar to the former Champ Car teams that have joined the series, Justin Wilson of Newman/Haas/Lanigan believes the concepts remain the same.
“Obviously the experience counts for something that is definitely beneficial,” Wilson said. “Things that translate over from a driver’s point of view, once you sit in the seat, it feels very similar. You have paddle-shift and you can see the front tires and get on with it. My part is relatively easy.
“The engineers have translated all our old setups to this car to get the spring rates similar to what we think will work with this car, the damper settings and the aero mapping is all something they interpret and try to translate to have some data to work with.”

• In the past week, two major sponsors have announced deals with the IndyCar Series with Coca-Cola signing a deal as the official soft drink and DirecTV signing a premium sponsorship contract to televise and promote the series.
“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to realize what we needed to do,” driver Tony Kanaan said. “That is why both sides gave away a lot of work and time and pride to come back and say we need this. That’s all we needed.”

• Andretti Green Promotions, the Indy Racing League, American Honda and St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker have reached an agreement to pursue an extension of the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg for four more years.
That is in addition to the one additional year already under contract, for a total of five more years of IndyCar Series racing on the streets of St. Petersburg.
The deal is pending approval from the city council. Baker intends to present the plan to the city council within the next few weeks.
All parties have expressed a commitment to work through any issues that may arise with the possible construction of a new baseball stadium downtown.
“(The Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg) is becoming, more and more, a tradition that is part of the fabric of our city,” Baker said. “As children growing up become race fans, as people throughout the city get to know the sport, they see it as an improvement to the quality of life of our city. It’s for that reason that I am thrilled to be able to say that the folks at this table have agreed that we think the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg should continue to come to St. Petersburg for the next five years.”

• Ernesto Viso of Venezuela had an impressive race on the streets of St. Pete, finishing fourth just one week after crashing in the closing laps of the Homestead-Miami race taking out the leader, Tony Kanaan.
 “It went very well,” said Viso, who drives for a former Champ Car team, but did not compete in the Champ Car Series as a driver. “We’re very happy. We know that we have the potential to be up there at the road courses. Now we just have to work harder on the ovals. I think the rain affected everybody. It was just about trying to keep the car in one piece and be as smooth as possible. There are many races left, and now we know that we can be at the top. We were almost as quick as the rest. We need to work a little bit more on the road courses and we will be on the podium soon.”