August 5, 2007
By Kim Roberson

Kim Roberson

Bonjour mes amis de emballage ! Quel grand week-end de l'emballage du Canada ! Le circuit Gilles Villeneuve est un cours provocant, qui a conduit au grand emballage hier!

OK�in English. Hello my racing friends! What a great weekend of racing from Canada! The Circuit Gilles Villeneuve is a challenging course, which made for some great racing yesterday!

I actually spent my Friday night watching the Rolex Sports Car Series just to see what the track in Montreal looked like before the Busch Series cars got on it yesterday. There is a hairpin turn on the track, that gave the guys who race that track on a regular basis, some challenges. I knew we were in for some excitement yesterday!

It was entertaining to see the signs for NAPA in French, reading �Pi�ces d'auto de NAPA� instead of �NAPA auto parts�.

This is the second trip over the border for the Busch Series this season. Listening to some of the fans talk about the trek, you would think we had crossed through the gates of hell, and not just the gates of immigration. I listened to call-in shows this week where some fans that called in made it seem that by heading to Montreal, we were betraying all that is to be loved about stock car racing.

I don't get it? Since when are we afraid of Canadians? Are we afraid of the Qu�b�cois because they speak French and not English as their first language? Don't we play the Canadian anthem at Michigan every year? Don't we embrace Ron Fellows when he comes to take the track in Sonoma and Watkins Glen? Don�t we play up there for baseball, basketball, and hockey?

Don't they make some of the best beer out there? (Insert the McKenzie Brothers here).

I have a good friend who is in training to join the RCMP...the Mounties. Mark became my friend because he is a fellow racing fan. As a matter of fact, I am pretty certain Mark loves NASCAR as much, if not more, than I do. I hear fans from all over Canada call into the radio shows almost on a daily basis to talk racing. Some guy called in on Wednesday saying he was driving from Saskatchewan to Montreal for the race...the equivalent of a fan from Montana driving to Watkins Glen or Pocono.

I've heard some fans say that NASCAR, going to Mexico earlier this year and Canada now, just isn't American.

Actually...yeah, it is. Mexico is in Central America, and Canada is a part of the same continent we are. Technically, they are all American. They just aren't in the USA.

Back in the 90's, you might remember when NASCAR headed west...way west. As in Japan. Dale Earnhardt led the contingent of drivers that included Rusty Wallace, Jeff Gordon, and Dale Junior, and they all raced in the rain in Japan. No one put a gun to their heads, and actually, from what I have heard, they all enjoyed the trip.

If it was good enough for the Intimidator, why can't it be good enough for the fans?

We have foreign drivers. Juan Pablo Montoya has been showing he is worthy of the ride he is in this year. Ron Fellows has been cross pollinating into NASCAR for nearly a decade, and wishes he could spend more time in our sport. Marcos Ambrose has won fans of all kinds over with his charming smile and great Aussie accent�not to mention some pretty good driving for a guy who is used to driving with the steering wheel on the other side of the car. There has been discussion of Sebastian Bourdais coming to NASCAR.

Why do we feel that it is fine for them to come and race here with us, but heaven forbid we actually share our sport with their fellow countrymen by coming to race on their turf?

Toyota joined the series this year in Cup and Busch, and you would have thought we let Satan himself on the track. Those "Yodies just aint 'Merican and we don't want 'em here" I have heard over and over. Just where are those Monte Carlos and Fusions made folks? (Look north and south of the border).

To me, Baseball is considered to be the #1 American sport, (as American as mom's apple pie, right?), and yet there are players from everywhere, and the Little League World Series is truly that...WORLD. The NFL plays overseas in pre-season every year....and until recently, there was the NFL-Europe. The NBA has players from even more places -- and a bunch of Americans go over to Europe in the off season to play over there just to keep in shape.

Why is it, NASCAR is so centrist when all other sports are so much more open minded?

Anyone who has been reading my columns for a while knows that I'm a relatively new fan -- one of those that has been called a Yuppie transient fan -- except I have stuck around for nearly four years, with many more in my future -- I go to races in person -- I study the history of the sport -- and I really don't give a damned where they race so long as they race. I have been to Mexico and Canada and Europe, and can say from first hand experience, they aren't scary folks. They can get just as excited about stock car racing as we can be -- if we educated them about the sport. We have F-1 fans here in America, and F-1 comes over here to race once a year, although they seem to think they are too good for us, and we seem to take that as an insult -- so why aren't we snobs for saying we are too good to go elsewhere?

It's a big world out there folks, and our sport is growing by leaps and bounds. While I have no desire to lose races at our "classic" tracks -- such as Bristol and Darlington and Richmond and Martinsville -- I do think we can take away a race from Cali or Texas or New Hampshire or Michigan and reach out to broader venues.

The true test of popularity was seeing how full the seats were this weekend at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. With as many fans as showed up to watch the racing, I say leave the race be. Spread the wealth. Share the excitement and enjoyment. Why be greedy when we can spread the love around?

I, for one, say the more fans the better.

Jusqu'� la semaine prochaine, mes amis. Au revoir !

The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.