CHAMP CAR Tracy returns to hunt with win

He moved into third place in the point standings.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) -- Defending Champ Car titleholder Paul Tracy vaulted himself back into championship contention Sunday with a victory at the Molson Indy Vancouver.
Tracy started from the pole and controlled the entire race for his second straight win at Vancouver. Michel Jourdain Jr. of Mexico worked his way up from 12th to finish in second place, about 5.5 seconds behind Tracy.
American rookie A.J. Allmendinger posted his first podium finish for upstart Rusport Racing, placing third.
Tracy, who was winless since the series opener on April 18, moved into third place in the series points standings, passing fellow Canadian Patrick Carpentier.
Bourdais fifth
Series leader Sebastien Bourdais of France finished fifth in his Newman Haas Racing car, retaining a hefty lead in the standings over second-ranked Bruno Junqueira of Brazil, who finished fourth.
The victory was the 28th Champ Car win of Tracy's career. He had no trouble with his competition, but was almost sunk by a problem on his second pit stop.
Forsythe Championship Racing operations chief Neil Micklewright suspected a malfunction in the refueling rig.
The team told Tracy, 19 seconds ahead of Jourdain, that he needed at least a 20-second lead to make a splash-and-go pit stop and retain the lead.
Tracy put in nine furious laps, brushing a tire wall at one point, and pitted with a 28-second margin, emerging with more than six seconds in hand.
"I just drove like crazy to pull out that lead," said Tracy.
Only two yellow flags
The race around Vancouver's notoriously crash-prone 1.781-mile street circuit was relatively incident-free with two yellow flags.
On lap 21, Carpentier tried to pass Brazilian rookie Alex Sperafico, who was a lap down, when they came together at the end of the pits, knocking them both out.
"[Sperafico] wasn't even in the race," said Carpentier, who crashed here last year due to contact with a lapped car. "I was really mad at the guy."
Rodolfo Lavin spun by himself on the same lap and was a lap down by the time he restarted. His race ended on lap 66 with a blown engine, his fourth DNF in seven races.
Mexican Gaston Mazzacane's race didn't last past the second warmup lap, when his Dale Coyne Racing car veered inexplicably into the front-straight wall, possibly due to a broken suspension.