Press Snoop: Tracy on pole as CCWS TV grows.

Newlywed PAUL TRACY is on pole for the Bridgestone Presents the Champ Car World Series Presented by Ford season-opener, with a record-breaking time of 1min 07.485secs set on his last lap of the Long Beach street circuit.

A more relaxed and confident Tracy has been among the fastest drivers all weekend, and was pleased that he broke the five-year old track qualifying record set by GIL de FERRAN in 2000. Adding to Tracy's pleasure was the addition of a new qualifying award, the Bridgestone Pole Award. With it comes a trophy and $5,000.

Beside Tracy on the front row Sunday afternoon will be BRUNO JUNQUEIRA, who also earned a qualifying point Friday for provisional pole position. Rounding out the top five are MARIO DOMINGUEZ, 2004 CCWS champion SEBASTIAN BOURDAIS and JUSTIN WILSON. Top rookie was TIMO GLOCK, starting in sixth position. Seven of the 19 car drivers are rookies.

All drivers have been on track in all sessions, and the weather has been sunny, warm and breezy.

Bridgestone Tyres, as part of its Pole Award, will also donate $2,500 at each CCWS race to the official Champ Car Charity, The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, and $2,5000 to a local charity. In this case, it is the (Long Beach) Grand Prix Foundation, which funds local charities.

Bridgestone is further sweetening the pot by having a $20,000 end of the year award to the CCWS driver who earns the most pole positions, and $10,000 to the CCWS crew chief whose driver earns the most pole positions.

The Champ Car TV coverage this weekend includes live coverage on NBC in the United States. Other Champ Car races will air on CBS and SPEED TV. CCWS announced on Saturday that the 2005 TV package "represents an 86 per cent increase from 2004, a 125 per cent increase outside of the US and a boost of nearly 1000 per cent on the European continent". A new agreement was reached with Eurosport to reach a potential 98 million households. The increased Eurosport coverage won't be live, however, but will instead encompass a one-hour highlights show at 11am on Monday morning.

CCWS has signed new TV agreements in Holland, India, Japan and Sweden. Improved agreements are coming with Ten Sports for Asia, FOX Sports Latin America for Brazil, Canada and Central America, and TV Azteca for Mexico - although locals apparently can't find the TV listing for the LBGP race.

Champ Car said the total number of potential households will be 464,800,000 with a reach of approximately 1.7 billion viewers.

The San Jose City Council meets on Tuesday [12 April] to approve/not approve the latest course layout for the San Jose Grand Prix Champ Car event and, once the gavel strikes on approval, trucks will roll - literally that night. By city ordinance, nothing can happen on the project until the official approval is granted.

The course has been redesigned a couple of times due to construction and cost concerns. The latest configuration will run clockwise and is a more simplistic street course design. Course designer RON DICKSON was planning on being at LBGP to meet with Champ Car officials, but was held up out of the country on another track project. He will be in San Jose several times soon, starting mid-April.

SPEED TV will handle the TV coverage for the San Jose Grand Prix. TV crews will come back out to San Jose on 13 April and take new camera shots for the race broadcast. None of the previous shots are applicable as the course has been completely changed.

More specific news is due today [Sunday] regarding promotion of the Beijing '06 Champ Car race.

Paul Newman was on The Tonight Show on Friday night with host JAY LENO, and whipped the presenter in a two-lap kart race inside the studio hallways. PLN jumped the start and never looked back. Afterwards a 'special limo' was out back to get Newman back to Long Beach - the Canary Fund two-seater, driven by none other than Champ Car 'super sub' MEMO GIDLEY.

PLN is among a growing number of watch collectors. He now owns a Rolex Daytona, which has unofficially been renamed the 'Newman' model. Wife JOANNE WOODWARD gifted the watch to PLN, with the inscription on the back reading 'Drive Slowly'. Newman also joins the growing number of motorsports folks who own Panerai watches, Many race drivers own one or more. According to LEWIS FRANCK, writer for ESPN Magazine, watch collecting is the new 'secret handshake.' NASCAR president MIKE HELTON usually shuns media, but get him started talking about his watch collection and it's another story....