PORTLAND – The first time Tyler Tadevic saw his name in newspapers on a constant basis probably was about two decades ago, when he was a track and field standout for Mountain View High School.

Now, he’s making his name known on a different kind of track – one for open-wheel auto racing.

Tadevic, who spent a few years as a youngster in Pendleton and went to West Hills Elementary School, is the team president for Pacific Coast Motorsports, which fields cars for drivers Alex Figge and Ryan Dalziel in the Champ Car World Series, a rival to the Indy Racing League in the world of major-league racing. This weekend, he and his team is making a stop at the Portland International Raceway for the annual Mazda Champ Car Grand Prix of Portland.

“I still can’t believe what I do for a living,” said the 36-year-old Ventura, Calif., resident, who calls his native Bend home. “It blows me away.”

Race fans across the country can see his team in action during a live broadcast of the race starting at 1 p.m. Sunday on ABC-TV (KATU, channel 2 in Portland, and KVEW, channel 42 in the Tri-Cities).

In 1989 Tadevic was a senior at Mountain View leaping his way to victory in the high jump at the Intermountain Conference Track and Field Championships. (He believes the meet was held in Hermiston.) While a prep athlete, he followed another high school in the league, Pendleton, during football season.

“I was a big fan of the Bucks,” said Tadevic, who said he has many relatives in Pendleton, including former city police Chief Ed Taber, his uncle. “I followed them during their success in IMC football and when they would compete in the state playoffs. I’ve been to the Round-Up many times and had a drink or two in the Let ‘er Buck Room.”

So, Oregonians – especially in IMC communities – looking for a team to follow in the race have a “homeboy” they can cheer for.

Tadevic got his start running the team when Figge asked him to manage his career while he was in the Atlantic series, considered the minor league of Champ Car. At the time, he was managing the World Speed Motorsports team in an on-track shot at Sears Point raceway in California.

“For me, it’s an easy relationship,” Figge said. “Tyler and I are like family. I’m close to his family, and he’s close to mine.”

But what’s really amazing is how he got his start in the sport he loves.

“I always loved motorsports,” he said. “At one point, I was working in time shares in Seattle, then I got fed up with it. I decided (racing) was what I wanted to do. … I threw caution into the wind, and instead of making decisions on what it could do monetarily, I decided to just get into it.”

Tadevic quit his job and sold his home 13 years ago and moved to California, where he was hanging out with a friend and living out of his van, collecting unemployment. He got a job at Sears Point working odd jobs, then became a mechanic and moved into a managerial position.

Then in 2002, Figge and his father Tom teamed with Tadevic to form PCM. The team started competition in 2003 and won the Atlantic series team championship in 2004.

This is the first year of competition in the Champ Car World Series for PCM, which has had to go from a crew of 13 people to 35 in Champ Car in four months’ time, Tadevic said, for competition purposes. And, Oregon’s native son in the series is bent on promoting the sport in Oregon.

“The name of the team is Pacific Coast Motorsports. We’re hardcore about being in the West,” Tadevic said. His first-year Champ Car drivers are off to a good start. Both have started the first three races of the season and have combined for three top-10s. The highest finish for both drivers is eighth.

“I think it’s going right along with right where we’re supposed to be,” Alex Figge said. “I think it’s going well, obviously. Every race, we’re getting better.”

Tadevic said PCM expects to have a car make victory lane “at some point,” and maybe Sunday will be the point in the calendar and Portland the point on the map.

“We feel pretty strongly we’ll have a pretty good set-up,” Tadevic said. “We’re looking forward to the (qualifying) Friday and Saturday.”