CHAMP CAR DRIVERS GONE WILD; Car race scheduled in Toronto; hockey fight breaks out.(Motorsports)

Byline: BILL McGUIRE

Seven full-course cautions for 27 laps. Five penalty flags served upon three drivers. There was so much bumping, banging and bad behavior that the race had to be shortened from 95 to 84 laps in order to fit the television broadcast window.

Okay, so the Champ Car event on the streets of Toronto was not a thing of beauty. But like a rough game of street hockey, it was not without entertainment value, in its peculiar way. Or a sense of satisfaction for the winner, as Sebastien Bourdais kept his head and ran mean and clean all day. He stayed in front of all the mayhem to score his third straight win of the season.

Tempers flared early, as the feud between Canadians Paul Tracy and Alex Tagliani that erupted in Cleveland the week before spilled over into the opening press conferences. "I arrived in Toronto to find Alex was doing a media tour bashing me in my hometown,'' said Tracy, a native of nearby Scarsborough, Ontario. "I dealt with it in the way I deal with it, which was to go out there and put it on the pole.'' That Tracy did, at least in provisional qualifying on Friday, with a lap of 59.648 seconds at 106.351 mph.

But in final qualifying on Saturday, Tracy was frustrated with his setup, unable to improve sufficiently on his Friday times. The pole went to Bourdais, with a time of 58.558 seconds at 107.893 mph (his third pole of the year, and the eighth in his two-year Champ Car career).

Bourdais' Newman-Haas teammate Bruno Junqueira was second-fastest, and the only other driver to break into the 58-second bracket. However, Junqueira would have to settle for third on the grid, as Tracy's first-day pole guaranteed him a front-row start under series rules. Mario Dominguez would line up fourth, while rookie Justin Wilson continued his remarkable qualifying performances this year by nailing down fifth.

Memo Gidley slotted in last at 18th, after what amounted to some familiarization laps on Saturday. A fan favorite and former CART "super sub,'' Gidley landed his first Champ Car start in several years when he was tapped by Paul Gentilozzi as the emergency replacement for Nelson Philippe, the 17-year-old driver with the Fabio haircut and the rich dad. The Philippes parted ways with Gentilozzi's Rocketsports Racing team due to "contractual differences'' Friday morning.