VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Paul Tracy said Saturday he feels "betrayed'' by CART because of some of the Champ Car sanctioning body's recent decisions.

The series points leader and pole-winner for Sunday's Vancouver Molson Indy said the penalty on Friday that cost him the provisional pole and the championship point that goes with it was only the latest blow.

"I feel a range of emotions in the last 24 hours that I'm not very happy with,'' Tracy said. "I feel that I've supported CART when CART had nobody to support them. Team Player's supported CART when nobody was supporting them.

"The things that have happened and the inconsistencies in the rules that have been going on for years and years are very frustrating to me and very troubling. My emotions are probably not much different from that of Tony George or Honda or Toyota, Marlboro Team Penske or Michael Andretti.''

George, a former member of the CART board of directors, is founder of the rival Indy Racing League, while engine manufacturers Honda and Toyota, the Penske team and driving star Andretti all left CART for the IRL this season or last.

Tracy added, "It's very frustrating to me. Like I said, I supported CART when nobody wanted to support them, so I feel betrayed in some way.''

Tracy said his recent frustration stems from a series of incidents.

"Over the last few races it's been very difficult for me,'' he said. "You know, at Portland I received a stop-and-hold penalty for I felt no reason. We went on to Cleveland and I received a $15,000 fine for wearing shorts to a press conference. Then, from there, we went to Toronto. I was leading the race by 33, 34 seconds, and there was a full-course yellow for no apparent reason for a car that was in the runoff area running, getting turned around.

"Then we go into today and yesterday, and what happened yesterday. So it's a cumulative thing.''

Tracy acknowledged there was an angry exchange between him and CART CEO Chris Pook at a party here Friday night, but Tracy said he only told Pook "just what I'm saying here.''

CART spokesman Adam Saal said reports that the confrontation became physical were "completely wrong.'' Saal said Tracy at first refused to shake hands with Pook but, after speaking for several minutes, they did shake hands as they parted.

"Paul wasn't very happy, but there was no physical contact except the handshake,'' Saal said.

Asked if his recent disillusion could lead to his leaving CART for the IRL or NASCAR, Tracy said, "Well, I think definitely it's made me question what exactly is going on.

"I have a contract that I will honor. From there, who knows what will happen. I've signed a contract with (team owner) Gerry Forsythe. I always honor my commitments.''

Baby Steps
Robert Moreno's third-place qualifying effort on Saturday is just another indication that his Herdez Competition team is making strides after a disappointing first half of the season.

"I think the best way to describe, it's been an effort that's been growing in our team,'' said Moreno, the 2001 Vancouver winner. "Our team has gone to a two-car team this year. We've hired a bunch of good people, and they are starting to work together.''

Going into Sunday's race, Moreno is 12th in the points, but he is coming off a sixth-place finish two weeks ago in Toronto, his best showing since starting the season with finishes of fifth and sixth.

Referring to Chris Gorne, his new engineer, Moreno said, "In the first four races, we sort of have very strong personalities, we sort of clashed a little bit. One day (in May) we sat down and fixed that.

"From that day on ... we started to just gel and learn more and more about the car, Lola being a new car for me.''

"The result today is just the result of all this effort that we've been putting (in). We just keep looking at what Paul (Tracy) is doing, and we're trying to do the same a little bit to get to his level.''

Miscellaneous
Tracy's pole is his fourth of the season and will mark the eighth time in 11 races he will start from the front row. ... Bruno Junqueira, second to Tracy in the season points, does not have a win this year but has finished in the top five in all but one of the races in 2003. ... No CART driver has been running at the end of each of the 10 races this season. ... Michel Jourdain, third in the standings, has completed the most miles this season, all but 157 of the total of 2,142.