Denver, Colorado - Sunday, August 13, 2006 - In front of his hometown fans, A.J. Allmendinger won an action-packed Denver Grand Prix Sponsored by Bridgestone today and moved up to second position in the Championship, marking Allmendinger's fourth win in the last six races. The Forsythe duo of Allmendinger and Paul Tracy were running first and second until the last turn of the last lap when Tracy had contact with Sebastien Bourdais and was not able to finish the race.
Allmendinger struggled during the first laps of the race as the handling of his car took a turn for the worse when his soft Bridgestone "Red" alternate tires started to wear off. The Forsythe Team decided to bring him into the pits early to change tires. With his new Bridgestone "Black" sticker tires he managed to catch and pass race leader Sebastien Bourdais and never looked back. Allmendinger built a 20 second lead and captured the fourth win of his career.
Tracy had an equally impressive run today after being spun out at the start of the race and falling to the back of the pack. He managed to every single car to move into second behind his teammate. It was looking like another Forsythe 1-2 until a fuel pickup problem surfaced in Tracy's car with 3 laps to go which severely slowed him down. He managed to hold position until the last turn of the last lap when Sebastien Bourdais tried a move on him and the two cars touched. Both were taken out of the race only a few hundred yards from the checkered flag.
A.J. Allmendinger
#7 INDECK
Ford-Cosworth/Bridgestone/Lola
Race Winner
Second in Points
"A lot of people were struggling on the red tires. We just never really got our car to really work with the tires. Sebastien started on the new set of blacks. First 10, 12 laps, I was hanging right with him. We were easily pulling away from everybody else."
"All of a sudden within a lap, two laps, the tires just went to junk and we were struggling. I was running 64's at the end. Just a great call by Michael Cannon, the whole engineering staff at Forsythe, to pull me in right there instead of trying to run a couple more laps and pit with everybody else, because if we would have done that we never would have had a chance at the second stint.
We had a great pit stop by my crew guys, as always. Once we got back out there, Sebastien was right in front of me again. I was just kind of pacing myself because the first five, six laps the blacks were about the same as the reds. All of a sudden the car came alive. I could see Sebastien just really struggling hard on the reds. It was more than anything just a matter of trying to time the pass out right. After I passed him I just paced myself to save tires in case a yellow came out. I'm really happy to win my home race and to see so many fans cheering for me up in the stands is an amazing feeling."
Paul Tracy
#3 INDECK
Ford-Cosworth/Bridgestone/Lola
Finished Sixth
Fourth in Points
"We had fuel pickup problems the last five laps of the race. It was pretty frustrating. I had a seven second lead but when the engine started to cutout Sebastien was able to close in. He made his move in the last corner of the last lap on the outside, and when you already have 35-point lead in the championship and want take that risk over two points that's what you get. To be honest, I don't feel bad for him; he's taken me out plenty of times so I don't feel too bad about something like that on the last turn of the last lap."
The next stop in the 2006 Bridgestone Presents the Champ Car World Series Powered by Ford will take place in Montreal August 25-27. Tune in to Race Director, available through the Champ Car website, for live coverage of the race and many practice and qualifying sessions with multiple channels of live video, audio, timing, telemetry and commentary. Visit http://www.champcar.ws and www.forsythe-racing.com for more information.
