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Motor Racing: Tracy chases dollars 1m bonus

Friday 08 July 1994 23:02 BST
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PRESSURE comes in the form of a possible dollars 1m bonus for Paul Tracy at the Cleveland IndyCar Grand Prix tomorrow. All the Canadian needs to do to fill his wallet and those of all other members of his Penske team is to win the race from pole position.

That may be all but it will take some doing. He put himself in line for a bonus in this race by fulfilling the sponsor's first criteria, victory at last month's Detroit Grand Prix. However, that was Tracy's only victory of the year. At least he can take comfort from the knowledge that he won at Cleveland last year.

'It adds a lot of pressure,' Tracy said. 'Obviously I'm going to put a lot of focus on it. I put a lot of focus on every weekend, but sometimes you go a little bit conservative on race set-ups. This weekend, there's everything to gain and nothing to lose.

'Everyone in the team, including secretaries, gets a percentage of prize-money, so an extra million dollars, that's a big bonus at the end of the year,' the Canadian said.

But the money is just as big an incentive to those who cannot win it. The last thing the rest of the IndyCar world wants to see is more money pouring into Roger Penske's team. Penske drivers have won each of the last six races on the PPG IndyCar World Series, including four by Al Unser Jnr and one each by Tracy and Emerson Fittipaldi.

They finished 1-2-3 in the most recent race at Portland on 27 June, with Unser guiding home his Ilmor-powered Penske first. It was the second sweep of the season for the trio.

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