IZOD IndyCar Series: Indianapolis 500 Bump Day

Topics:  Indianapolis 500

Paul Tracy
May 23, 2010

INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA

THE MODERATOR: Can you tell us how you feel?
PAUL TRACY: Yeah, I mean, obviously I'm a little bit numb right now, disappointed. We were on track, and we were trying to do it. And it's harder to walk away, you know?
The team did everything they could. I drove the wheels off it. And I don't know what to say.
THE MODERATOR: We saw you drive the wheels off of it. The effort was there. Open it up to questions.

Q. Paul, when the decision is made to pull out a qualified car, you're in the car, do you have any idea what's going on, or do you know you just gotta go?
PAUL TRACY: It's time to go. It's time to go. And the frustrating part for us is that the speed was in the car, at various times of the day. It was -- all week the car was 225s, 226. Two days ago we were second quickest on the track.
You know, we ran a 225 this morning. And when the temperature came up, we lost the handle on the car and couldn't get it back. And it wasn't for lack of trying. We changed a lot of things on the car. We changed springs. We changed dampers. We changed roll centers. We changed aero. It wasn't like we were sitting on our hands waiting to go.
But we felt at the time there we were pretty safe where we were. Turns out we would still have been in. But it's a team decision. And we worked as a team all week, and we made decisions as a team.
And you win and lose as a team. So I've had a lot of wins in my career where we've made calls that were the right calls. We've made calls that are the bad calls.
And I just feel really frustrated for all the sponsors that got on board, GEICO. And this is not a cheap endeavor. And put a lot of work into this and we came up short as a team. So it's frustrating.

Q. Paul, looked like you came pretty close to the wall there a couple of times. Did you actually touch it? We couldn't see from TV if you touched it or not.
PAUL TRACY: No, I didn't touch. I just about touched on every lap. And it was sliding, and, I mean, you guys could see it on TV. I was on the verge of crashing every corner. So I was able to keep it off the wall and not destroy the car.
We've had a tough week, KV. The cars have -- like I said, in certain conditions it had become very difficult to drive. We had three cars hard into the wall. So I was happy that we didn't end up going on the trailer in a box with a bunch of pieces.
It's how Indianapolis is, you know? Some of the greatest drivers have not made it.
THE MODERATOR: Paul, I applaud you for coming in. It means a lot to us.
PAUL TRACY: Thank you, guys.