Tracy was born in Scarborough, Ontario, Canada, and grew up in a working-class suburb east of Toronto. His father, Tony Tracy, was born in Northern Ireland and emigrated to Canada in the 1960s after injuring himself in a motorcycle accident. Tony Tracy was a house painter and president of Trabur Painting, and he provided the funds for his son to begin racing. Paul Tracy has two older half-sisters from his father’s first marriage and a younger sister. He attended Jack Miner Public High School, continuing his education while karting.
Tracy began kart racing at age five and quickly found success, winning the Canadian Senior Karting Championship twice and 91 of 94 races in his first full senior season. He progressed to car racing at sixteen, finishing third in the 1985 Formula Ford 1600 championship with one win and earning Rookie of the Year honors. Tracy became the youngest Canadian Formula Ford champion in the 1985 CASC Formula 1600 Challenge Series with Colin Hines Racing in a Van Diemen RF85-Ford formula open-wheel car, and the youngest Can-Am race winner the following year.
Tracy began his CART career in 1991 with Dale Coyne Racing, but drove three races for Penske Racing following his debut. He competed with Penske in eleven races during the 1992 season, finishing on the podium three times. In 1993, Tracy finished third in the drivers' standings after winning five races. He won three more races in 1994. He moved to Newman/Haas Racing for the 1995 season, winning two races before returning to Penske for the 1996 championship. Tracy won another three races in 1997 before being fired for criticizing the car and joining Team Green the following year. He was third in the 1999 championship with two victories but fell to fifth in 2000 despite three more wins.
Tracy’s 1997 season ended prematurely when he was fired from Penske Racing for publicly criticizing the team’s car. In 2000, he was disqualified from the Detroit race after an incident involving a pit crew member. At the 2002 Indianapolis 500, Tracy passed Hélio Castroneves just before a yellow flag, but officials ruled in favor of Castroneves. Tracy maintained that he won the race. In 2006, he was involved in an altercation with Alex Tagliani and later with Sébastien Bourdais.
Tracy raced part-time for several teams following the unification of the CCWS and the IndyCar Series. He also tested a Benetton Formula One car in 1994 and competed in the Rolex Sports Car Series, NASCAR’s Busch Series and Camping World Truck Series, Stadium Super Trucks, and the Superstar Racing Experience. In 2023, Tracy won a race in the NASCAR Brasil Series. He retired from full-time racing after the 2012 season, citing the death of Dan Wheldon as a contributing factor.
Tracy is an inductee of the Long Beach Motorsports Walk of Fame (2013), the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame (2014), and the Road to Indy Hall of Fame (2015). He was awarded All-American status by the American Racing Writers' and Broadcasters Association in 1990 and received the Bruce McLaren Trophy that same year. He was voted CART’s Most Popular Driver in 2002 and 2003. Paul Ferriss wrote a biography of him, Never Too Fast: The Paul Tracy Story, published in 2001.
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