Montreal, Aug 26: Paul Tracy was racing along Sunday, content with what he expected to be a fourth-place finish in the Montreal Molson Indy.
Then, with only two corners left to negotiate on the 13-turn, 2.709-mile Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, the Ford Cosworth engine in his Player's/Forsythe Racing Lola began to sputter.
Coming off the last turn, it quit entirely. As the frustrated Tracy coasted slowly to the finish line, Alex Tagliani and Mario Dominguez both sped past, relegating Tracy to sixth place and costing him four championship points.

"I did not know I was low on fuel until the last lap in the hairpin and that I had to start saving it," Tracy said. "It's just points given away for no reason."
Still, combined with the problems that relegated CART Champ Car Series runner-up Bruno Junqueira to 13th place and no points in the race, Tracy's lead increased from 20 points to 28 with five races remaining.



"At least we come out of the weekend better point-wise than we came in," said Tracy, chasing his first CART title.



Tracy had been trailing teammate and fellow Canadian Patrick Carpentier before his fuel tank went empty. Unlike his usual aggressive style, Tracy was putting no pressure on Carpentier.



"Once Bruno was out of the running, there was no point in me risking a pass on Pat," he said. "But still, four points is four points. We would have had a 32-point lead instead of 28."



Junqueira, who lost the series lead to Tracy two weeks earlier in a race at Mid-Ohio, took himself out of contention with a pair of spins, the latter killing his engine and costing the Brazilian driver a lap.



"I am frustrated more than I can explain," he said. "I was too close to the guy in front of me and lost the downforce."



There was no home cooking Sunday at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, with all three Canadian drivers -- two of them from the Province of Quebec -- trailing winner Michel Jourdain of Mexico across the finish line.



Patrick Carpentier got up to third late in the race but was unable to overtake runner-up Oriol Servia. Alex Tagliani started from the pole and led 52 of the 75 laps but wound up fourth after a failed fuel strategy and two off-course excursions in the late-going.



And Tracy failed in his bid to add a win in Montreal to victories earlier this season in Toronto -- his hometown -- and Vancouver.



"We learned from this and we are convinced more than ever (the win) is going to happen for us," said Tagliani, who is 0-for-73 in his CART career.



Carpentier said, "I was having a great time out there pushing Oriol so that he would make a mistake. I really wanted to pass him to have a better finishing position.



"We did have minor problems with the brakes because they were overheating, but we managed to nurse them enough to finish on the podium. We put on quite a show and I hope the crowd loved it. It was a lot of fun."



Race officials said Sunday's crowd was 58,000, a drop of about 6,000 from last summer's inaugural CART race in Montreal.



CART president and CEO Christopher R. Pook said Sunday the company's board of directors has instructed management to conclude negotiations of a possible buyout of the struggling Champ Car series by Open Wheel Racing Series LLC as soon as possible.



"At an all day meeting of Champion's board of directors on Saturday, management was given very clear direction to continue its negotiations ... and see to conclude those negotiations as quickly as possible so that everyone clearly understands the future direction of the company," Pook said.



The investor group has made an offer to purchase the remaining public shares of CART and take it private. The offer was about 50 cents a share -- or $7.4 million -- for all the outstanding stock.



Open Wheel Racing Series is a newly formed holding company whose investors include CART team owners Gerald Forsythe, Kevin Kalkhoven and Paul Gentilozzi, as well as entertainment promoter Carl Russo. CART said the four men already control 23 percent of its stock.



Kalkhoven, through a spokeswoman for his PK Racing team, said the purchase offer was fair because of the amount of money the group would need to invest in the series to keep it operating.



CART reported last month that it did not have the money to ensure a 2004 season. Its quarterly report issued two weeks ago had total losses for the first half of the season listed at $43.5.



Jourdain has now completed a series-leading 1,532 of a possible 1,564 laps this season. ... No driver in the CART series has been running at the end of all 14 races in 2003. Junqueira leads the way with 13. ... Despite finishing last on Sunday, Sebastien Bourdais still leads the rookie standings by 50 points over Darren Manning, who was 10th.


Bureau Report