“I’m sure everyone is disappointed,” said Tracy, who is a four-time winner of this race. “That wasn’t what we were trying to do for ABC but we didn’t end up in the wall and we just tried to do the best we could with what we had, and got to the finish. It was hard because the car wasn’t handling well for the first 100 laps so I was really just trying to keep it off the wall and not wreck the car. It was definitely frustrating.”

Foyt radioed to Tracy on his cool down lap, “You did a good job with a terrible car.”

Tracy started 16th after the team went in a different direction for qualifying when Tracy wasn’t happy with the car in practice. He was satisfied with the car in qualifying saying it was better but the team didn’t have another practice to test their race set-up.

In the race Tracy jumped from 16th to 12th but then began dropping back as the car became very loose, forcing him to get totally out of the throttle entering turns one and three. The loss of momentum saw his lap times drop and it became a matter of hanging on until the first pit stop which unfortunately didn’t come until 57 laps into the race. By then Tracy had lost two laps to leader Ryan Briscoe.

The ABC Supply crew made a big front wing adjustment—taking out three turns of front wing-- but it wasn’t enough and by the time of the second stop, they took out two more. By then Tracy was five laps down and just trying to stay out of the way of the leaders although he said the car was handling much better. He finished six laps down to the leaders, due in part to there being only two caution periods, the last of which was for debris. It was one of the most accident-free races ever run here with only one car hitting the fourth turn wall, rookie Mike Conway.

Tracy soldiered through the frustrating race to finish in 17th position.

Scott Dixon won and was trailed by pole winner Ryan Briscoe, Dario Franchitti, Graham Rahal and Danica Patrick. The series heads to Texas Motor Speedway this week. No decision has been made as to who will drive the car this coming weekend.
 

MILWAUKEE May 30, 2009—Paul Tracy didn’t know what to expect when he rolled off to qualify A.J. Foyt’s No. 14 ABC Supply car today at the Milwaukee Mile as the car he practiced in was changed completely before qualifying.

However, Tracy liked what he felt because he proceeded to click off his four fastest laps of the day which put him 16th on the grid for tomorrow's ABC Supply/AJ Foyt 225. Running 23-second laps in practice, Tracy ticked off four laps ranging from 22.9 to 22.5 seconds, getting quicker every lap for a four-lap average speed of 160.79mph.

“We changed it completely, front to back, top to bottom and I was really going in there blind,” said Tracy in his post-qualifying interview. “The car was much better. I took it easy the first lap and it just got better and better every lap. I felt we could have ran mid- to low 22s but I didn’t want to wreck. We’re a lot better than we were when we unloaded. We’ll just get the car better for race trim.

"I’m happy with the job the ABC team has done," he said. "We struggled all day today and threw big changes at it and made it better so we’ll continue that trend.”

“We decided it couldn’t get much worse, so it was worth the gamble,” said Foyt. “At least now it’s going in the right direction. I’m pretty upset that we didn’t have a better starting point for him but hopefully we can have a good race tomorrow.”

Ryan Briscoe won the pole with a speed of 168.39mph while his teammate Helio Castroneves crashed during his qualifying run and will start last in the 20-car field. The race will be televised by ABC-TV, starting at 3:30pm Eastern Time.