No, No, No NO! do not cut off the tracing paper. Never do that. You'd be changing the fell of the piece. I would suggest buying some large format tracing paper - sandwich this image in-between the large format tracing paper. Then sandwich that between two pieces of illustration board ( the illustration board must be a bit larger than the prelim piece, or you will get more marks on the artwork ).
I don't mean to be anal, but I, and I'm sure you, would hate to have anything happen to this great piece.