NASCAR Coming to Canada!
NASCAR about to invade Canada
Bill Beacon, Canadian Press
Published: Monday, October 02, 2006
MONTREAL -- NASCAR is about to invade Canada.
The stock car racing series once centred in the American south will run a Busch Series event Aug. 4 at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve, a track more used to the whine of sleek Formula One cars.
The two-day event announced Monday will see a Grand-Am Series race on Friday, Aug. 3, with the 750 horsepower Busch Series cars taking over the following day.
"It's a great setting and we're excited to be here next August," said NASCAR CEO Brian France, who flew in with top executives and a driver from each series for the announcement.
NASCAR has already placed Busch series events in Mexico and sees moving into Canada as a means to cover the entire North American market.
He said thousands of fans in Canada will get "a chance to see side-by-side stock car racing on their home soil."
NASCAR announced last week that it would put the Montreal event on its 35-race Busch Series schedule for 2007, but organizers delayed the official announcement until all details were resolved.
"Getting everything right on both ends was difficult, but we got the right outcome," added France, who has worked on the project for two years.
France was accompanied by vice-president John Saunders, Grand-Am president Roger Edmunson, Grand-Am driver David Donohue and Busch veteran Kenny Wallace.
The Busch Series, one level below the top-ranked Nextel Cup series, will race on the 4.361-kilometre (2.7-mile) road track that plays host to the hugely successful Canadian Grand Prix Formula One event.
But unlike Champ Car, which fizzled in five years on the track partly due to unfavourable comparisons with F1, the stock cars bring a different style of racing the promoters are confident will work.
Martin Spalding, who works with promoter Normand Legault, would not predict how many fans would turn out, but said he expects spectators from Ontario, the Maritimes and the northeastern United States for the race.
"Since the stories about it appeared in the media, we've had tons of e-mails, not only from Quebec and Ontario," he said.
The event has bumped Champ Cars off the track, but the Champ Car World Series has already lined up the Circuit Mont-Tremblant in St-Jovite, Que., 140 kilometres north of Montreal, for a race on July 1.
That gives the area three major motor racing dates next summer, including the Canadian Grand Prix in mid-June.
The Busch Series often has several drivers from the Nextel Cup in its events, but it will be tougher for star drivers to make the trip next summer.
The Montreal race will be held one day before the Pennsylvania 500 at Pocono Raceway, more than 600 kilometres away in Long Pond, Pa.
But France expects several stars to make the trip because it is only a one-hour flight and sponsors will be eager to impress a new audience.
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What took them so long? It was just a natural progression.
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