Houston, TX (My Sportsbook) - While the Champ Car Series has raced on the streets of Houston previously (1998-2001), the 1.7-mile, 10-turn circuit around Reliant Field and the Astrodome is very different from the one they raced on five years ago.

So teams will have to treat this like a new event.

"The thing about running at a new track, as opposed to one that we've been to many, many times is that you tend to spend your practice time doing basic things rather than more advanced experiments," said Craig Hampson, race engineer at Newman/Haas Racing to David Phillips of champcarworldseries.com.

In 2005, the series raced on two new circuits in Edmonton and San Jose. In both events, Sebastien Bourdais was the winner with his Newman/Haas teammate Oriol Servia finishing second and third, respectively.

Depending on whether the race in South Korea takes place this year (it was cancelled in 2005), this might be the only new track for 2006.

"To a certain extent you're relying on a driver's experience," said Michael Cannon of Forsythe Championship Racing. "You don't have a lot of information and the track's always very, very slippery to begin with. So you've got to rely on the driver to diagnose what is truly a circuit specific set-up problem."

That means that the more experienced drivers will give their engineers better feedback and that in turn allows the engineers to dial in the cars more quickly.

So expect teams with a veteran combination of driver and team to perform well this weekend.

That bodes well for Newman/Haas with Bourdais and Bruno Junqueira and Forsythe with Paul Tracy and Mario Dominguez.

The season opener at Long Beach showed that everyone will once again be trying to catch Bourdais. The ease of his 14-second victory should have scared the other teams into working hard over the month-long break between the first and second races.

We will see if anyone has made the step up in class to match Bourdais and Newman/Haas Racing.

One possible challenger will be Justin Wilson. After a podium finish in the opening round, Wilson tested at both Portland and Sebring during the layoff.

"It's been a busy few weeks," Wilson said. "The tests in Portland and Sebring were useful, and I'm looking forward to getting out there and quantifying what we've learned. We've done some simulation work on the track layout for Houston, so I have a bit of an idea what to expect.

Expect another Bourdais victory.