Paul Tracy has confirmed he will race in both Canadian races on the IndyCar Series schedule. The 2003 Champ Car title-winner will continue his relationship with KV Racing for the Toronto and Edmonton events in July.

The deal was initiated by a chance conversation Tracy had with a corporate executive at Long Beach this year, although the identity of the company or companies involved has yet to be revealed. GEICO, sponsor of Tracy’s No. 15 car at this weekend’s Indy 500, will not be one of them, as it doesn’t sell insurance in Canada.

Said Tracy: “This is a chance to carry on working with KV Racing so I’m very happy about that. The cars are great, the team works well together and there’s satisfaction on both sides.

“As for racing in front of my home crowd, I’m very happy. I won a couple of times in Toronto, and I think this will be a genuine chance to do it again. As for Edmonton, that’s a great course, probably the toughest one on the IndyCar calendar. I loved racing there last year, even though it was a one-off.

“Canadian fans really love open-wheel racing, and I’m going to do my best to help make the races even more of a success. I’ll be going up there to do a bunch of media stuff and ticket sales drives over the next couple of months.”

Tracy believes he has a reasonable chance of starting in more races this year. He said: “I’m very grateful to Jimmy [Vasser] and Kevin [Kalkhoven] that they’re making this opportunity happen, but it’s no secret that I want to do all the remaining races on the calendar. We’re still in talks with other sponsors.

“As I told RACER.com readers in my blog a few days back, Jimmy has promised me a car for Milwaukee if I win Indy. And I’m thinking if I win both, I might start looking pretty indispensable! If that makes us attractive to more sponsors, the whole thing can snowball.”