NASCAR Happy With Canadian Visit
NASCAR officials were ecstatic with their midweek visit to Montreal and are moving forward with plans to expand the Busch Series into Canada -- perhaps as early as next season. The contingent of seven NASCAR representatives found the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, a temporary street course, to be in race-ready condition with very few alterations necessary, said Steve O'Donnell, managing director of events and operations. The only glaring need at this time is a short extension of pit road.
"The track and facilities were in great shape and really have a lot to offer to NASCAR," O'Donnell said. "And it meets a need for NASCAR, which has targeted road course races in the Busch Series as one of the areas we'd like to grow."
It's possible to get Montreal onto the 2007 schedule as a third road course race for the Busch Series. It would join Watkins Glen and Mexico City, which hosted its second event in March and has proved that NASCAR can be a huge success beyond U.S. borders. Normand Legault, promoter of the Montreal track, has long been lobbying NASCAR to move into Canada. He currently hosts two races a year at his facility, which is temporarily erected on a man-made island for each event.
The track can accommodate 125,000 fans a day, and about 95 percent use public transportation to reach the facility. Legault has maintained that few changes would have to be made to the setup, other than finding a way to house the large transporters that NASCAR teams travel with. It's not clear how NASCAR will find room on its schedule for Montreal. The Busch schedule already has 35 races on it, and adding another date would put it at the maxed-out number NASCAR considers its Nextel Cup schedule to be at. So it's possible that for Canada to get a race, another facility would lose a current Busch date.(Sporting News)
NASCAR officials were ecstatic with their midweek visit to Montreal and are moving forward with plans to expand the Busch Series into Canada -- perhaps as early as next season. The contingent of seven NASCAR representatives found the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, a temporary street course, to be in race-ready condition with very few alterations necessary, said Steve O'Donnell, managing director of events and operations. The only glaring need at this time is a short extension of pit road.
"The track and facilities were in great shape and really have a lot to offer to NASCAR," O'Donnell said. "And it meets a need for NASCAR, which has targeted road course races in the Busch Series as one of the areas we'd like to grow."
It's possible to get Montreal onto the 2007 schedule as a third road course race for the Busch Series. It would join Watkins Glen and Mexico City, which hosted its second event in March and has proved that NASCAR can be a huge success beyond U.S. borders. Normand Legault, promoter of the Montreal track, has long been lobbying NASCAR to move into Canada. He currently hosts two races a year at his facility, which is temporarily erected on a man-made island for each event.
The track can accommodate 125,000 fans a day, and about 95 percent use public transportation to reach the facility. Legault has maintained that few changes would have to be made to the setup, other than finding a way to house the large transporters that NASCAR teams travel with. It's not clear how NASCAR will find room on its schedule for Montreal. The Busch schedule already has 35 races on it, and adding another date would put it at the maxed-out number NASCAR considers its Nextel Cup schedule to be at. So it's possible that for Canada to get a race, another facility would lose a current Busch date.(Sporting News)
