Paul Tracy says changes are coming to his Forsythe Racing Champ Car team following yet another disappointing season.

"If you're a Champ Car fan you'll be well aware that at Forsythe Championship Racing, we spent the summer pissing in the dark on set-up," he writes in his autosport.com racing column. "What we didn't realise until just before Zolder - our 11th round - is that we've been pissing both in the dark and into the wind.

"Not a pretty picture."

Tracy says the addition of Tom Brown as the team's Technical Director following Elkhart Lake has given him hope that the situation can be reversed.

"We lost our way big time in the middle of the season just through not having the basic set-up right," says Tracy. "We had it running like an old Lola - nose-up, tail-down - and it needs to be the other way round on the DP01. Once Tom arrived, that was the first thing he corrected. He has a better understanding of the car, and now we're going in the right direction."



"I see good things happening, and about freakin' time!"

Tracy says while he's encouraged by the upcoming changes within the team, the same can't be said for the most recent decision to drop teammate Oriol Servia for the last two races of the season in favour of David Martinez.

"He is probably the closest teammate I've had in my career in terms of what we want and need from a car," explained Tracy.

"Right from the get-go of his deal, I think it was made pretty clear that this might happen. It was a race-by-race gig, and we need a Mexican driver for the Mexico City race."

"It's sad. Oriol's done a really good job for us, he's been a really good teammate and he's also been useful."

With all the recent news about open wheel racers making the move to NASCAR, Tracy once again set the record straight that he has no plans to leave Champ Car anytime soon.

"Right now the series is on rocky ground but I'm gonna be loyal, and I'm not looking around. I'm happy with the amount of money I make, and though I'm not happy with how we're running right now, that's something we can work on.

"And I told Kevin that Champ Car can use me as a utility to promote the series and I'm committed to try and see it through. I've been through the best and been through the worst and I'm committed to Champ Car."

Tracy will take advantage of the break leading up to the next race in Australia to try a little off-road racing. He's scheduled to take part in his first ever Championship Off Road Racing event at Chula Vista at the end of this month.

It's a real pain in the ass that Phoenix has been canned. Aside from the basics of making us look like *******s, and having it ruin the championship battle, it's also a circuit where Forsythe could have gone OK, I think.

And it certainly didn't help with my sponsor, Monster energy drink. That's a big market for them, and we were basing a sponsorship package to start at that race - and I mean a good deal where maybe we'd have a car sponsored by them.

Then they read on the internet that Phoenix is cancelled, which knocked everything into a tailspin. So that's pushed things into a little bit of doubt. But they've told me they're gonna evaluate where they want to be, and as we haven't seen a 2008 schedule yet, Monster aren't ready to commit to anything yet.

They've committed to me, no problem; as long as I'm driving they'll have a personal deal with me. That's good, and it puts money in my pocket. But wouldn't it be cool if we could attract them to sponsor the car and in that way support the series? The business model of Champ Car needs to get to where companies like Monster are convinced by it.

ich glaube wenn er oder Vasser so etwas über die Medien machen würde, dann wäre es mit der Professionalität der Champcar-Serie nicht sehr weit her. Wenn jemand dort wirklich etwas ändern möchte und keine Medienhure ist, dann macht er das ganz im stillen Kämmerchen mit Kalkhoven und Co aus und dann bekommt da niemand etwas von mit.

was soll paule da auch groß sagen? er sieht, das man auch mit guten leistungen gegen einen paydriver ausgetauscht werden kann. er hat nicht mal gute leistungen zu bieten. außerdem ist es schon soviel, wozu man seine klappe auf tun müßte, das es einigen bestimmt schon am allerwertesten vorbei geht. die saison ist fast rum und man will nur noch ins ziel kommen und hoffen, das nächste saison alles besser wird. jetzt noch mehr öl ins feuer, macht das unterfangen nicht einfacher...