Auto racing: Tracy rediscovers top form

Coming off a difficult and frustrating season, Paul Tracy is determined to get his open-wheel career back in gear.

The 38-year-old racer, the oldest and winningest active driver in the Champ Car World Series, is off to a decent start, taking the outside spot on the front row for today’s inaugural Vegas Grand Prix at Las Vegas, the season opener on a new course that winds through the streets of downtown Sin City.

While Australia’s Will Power, last year’s top rookie, won his second pole in three races, Tracy earned his front-row start by taking the provisional pole in Friday’s qualifying. That guaranteed the Canadian driver would start no worse than second and he took advantage of that to use the final session to work on race setup and try to get less wear on his rear tires.

“That’s a problem we had yesterday and we spent quite a bit of time today on longer runs, seven or eight laps, to see if we could figure that out,” Tracy said. “It probably cost us a little bit in terms of the outright lap time, but I think we have a good race car.”

Most important, though, is that Tracy believes he is competitive again after a year in which he won no poles and no races for the first time since he joined the Forsythe team in 2003 and only the third time in a career that began in 1991.

“I think my focus is all (on) this championship,” Tracy said. “I signed a new contract last year with Forsythe Racing and made a commitment to the series and to my team. Probably, looking back on it now, last year I spread myself a little bit too thin, doing too much stuff.

“I was doing endurance racing, doing (six) NASCAR Busch races on off weekends. I was in a position with the team I’m with to have the freedom to do that, but I don’t think my full concentration was totally on this.”

Edwards takes Pepsi 300

Carl Edwards raced to his second consecutive NASCAR Busch Series victory, easily winning the Pepsi 300 in chilly conditions at Nashville Superspeedway in Gladeville, Tenn., to extend his lead in the season standings.

The Nextel Cup driver led the final 25 laps and crossed the finish line 4.7 seconds ahead of David Reutimann.

Dave Blaney, who was involved in an early fracas, rallied to finish third. Jason Leffler was fourth, followed by Regan Smith.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever raced this cold, maybe on a local race track, but it was a pretty chilly day to race,” Edwards said. “The cars are usually 40-50 degrees warmer than outside so it was a great day to be a race car driver as far as comfort.”

Edwards struggled with an early handling problem, but crew chief Pierre Kuettel was able to resolve the issue

“I felt really confident going in, like it was our race to lose,” Edwards said. “Then they dropped the green flag and we went backward like a rock. I was really nervous there. But P.K. and the guys did a great job of regrouping. They made some pretty good-sized changes for this place and the car got better.”

Massa masters Malaysia

Felipe Massa continued his momentum from late last season by taking the pole position for today’s Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang.

Massa, who led both of Friday’s practices in a Ferrari, had a qualifying time of 1 minute, 35.043 seconds for his fourth career pole and first this season. The Brazilian ended the 2006 season with two straight poles.