There were two announcements from NASCAR in recent days about the Camping World Truck Series.
One was that there would be a race at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park next Labour Day and one that there would be a race at the half-mile dirt speedway in Ohio owned by Tony Stewart.
Guess which announcement has received the most attention south of the border?
The road-course race at Old Mosport isn't even on the radar down there. Columnist after columnist and website after website are all full of the race at Eldora Speedway.
In all the stories, there is much talk about NASCAR returning to its short-track roots. There are sugggestions that the dirt race will be the first of many and that the focus of the truck series will start to shift back to what NASCAR once was: a small oval speedway racing series.
So this makes me wonder who will be driving those trucks next September when the series comes to Canada because I'm not sure a short-oval, dirt-track racer is going to be all that comfortable shifting gears and turning right while going up hill and down dale.
With NASCAR more and more becoming a "pay-driver series," particularly when it comes to the trucks, I worry that many of the Camping World Series regulars might take a pass on CTMP and their owners rent their rides out to the highest bidder.
I mean, will Kyle Busch be here (he owns a team in the truck series and frequently drives)? Joe Nemechek? Todd Bodine? Series champion James Buescher?
Just wondering . . .
It looks as if - for the moment, anyway - Ferrari will drop the idea of appealing the finish of last weekend's Brazilian Grand Prix because of suspicions that Sebastian Vettel's pass of Jean-Eric Vergne was illegal.
But then you see a headline like this - "Ferrari never intended to diminish Vettel's victory" - and it really makes you wonder.
If that's so, why did they bring it up in the first place? And who amongst us wants to bet that it won't be brought up again?
It's bad enough during the racing season, but the off-season headlines and stories are often a joke.
Here's a sampling.
You need to try harder.
Kyle Busch is a decent road racer. James Buscher is not bad and will want to work to get better before he gets to Sprint Cup.
John McManus
Posted by: John McManus | 12/01/2012 at 04:29 PM
I don't think you'll see any of the names you mention in the Truck Series race at Mosport. Kyle Busch will be in Atlanta for the Cup race, as will Joe Nemechek (starting & parking). Todd Bodine is out of a ride as of now, and without a sponsor in his back pocket might be out of a ride permanently (see past champion Johnny Benson). James Buescher is the most likely driver to see at Mosport, but my guess is he'll be getting more and more Nationwide series races.
That said, you should see some pretty good up and coming drivers, among them Ty Dillon, Timothy Peters, Jason White, Ryan Blaney, Joey Coulter, Matt Crafton, Miguel Paludo, Nelson Piquet Jr. (very likely) and Johnny Sauter.
My guess is the Camping World Truck race at Mosport will be more entertaining than the Cup race at Atlanta that same day.
Thanks for the great posts. I really enjoy your racing coverage (mainly Nascar focused, but I do enjoy reading about the other racing series that you cover.
Posted by: Michael in SoCal | 12/03/2012 at 11:33 AM
It's funny, I was having a similar discussion with friends on a forum, who said "they're gonna hire a bunch of ringers for Eldora because none of them know how to race on dirt!" ...
- John Blankenship, Kyle Larson, Josh Richards all run partial NASCAR schedules now, and would likely be there. Brendan Gaughan, Matt Crafton, Jason Leffler and Brian Scott are all accomplished dirt racers.
- Ty Dillon, Justin Lofton, and Parker Kligerman all come from ARCA, where they race on A) dirt and B) Road Courses. Ryan Truex raced well on them in the K&N Series.
- Nelson Piquet, Jr. raced GP2 and Formula 1, and has to be considered the favourite at Mosport.
- Kyle Busch is a killer on road courses. He's also raced here twice before, at Delaware Speedway, so he's no stranger to coming over the border. Or he'll send Kurt or Denny Hamlin, both of whom are good at it.
- Cale Gale raced in the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series, so he's familiar with Mosport.
- Travis Kvapil has plenty of road course experience in Cup and Nationwide.
- Ron Hornaday is a former winner on road courses in the Trucks, at Topeka or Watkins, I forget which.
- Mario Gosselin is from the area. Not sure if he raced Mosport though.
- And of course, Ron Fellows is SURE to be in a Truck.
I'm not worried. I've already got my tickets.
Posted by: john | 12/03/2012 at 03:24 PM