It all started with Tony Stewart. He won the Indy Racing League Championship in 1997, and decided to run in the then Nascar Winston Cup Series in 1999.  Tony won three races that year and finished fourth in the Winston Cup Championship. People the world over thought that an open wheel driver would not do well in stock cars the first year or two if ever. He proved them all wrong that first year and continues to do above average, even attaining championship status not once but twice.

Here we go again

            This years Sprint Cup season will be more heavily populated than ever by open wheel drivers. There are four new drivers this year that carry a lot of experience between them.

Dario Franchitti

            Born in Edinburgh Scotland on May 19^th 1973, Dario started his racing career at the age of 11, racing karts in his native homeland of Scotland. Dario won the series championship in his first year in the karts. He is the first European driver to join the Nascar ranks full time. Dario is not starting in the Sprint Cup without any stock car experience though as he ran three races in the Busch Series, Now the Nationwide Series, last year. He ran and finished 25^th at Texas, 29^th at Phoenix and 39^th at Homestead. They were not stellar performances but it is far and away better than coming into the series cold. For a rookie, seat time is at a premium. Dario, as you may already know, is married to movie star Ashley Judd who can be seen with him at many race venues. Dario will be racing for Chip Ganassi racing and will be driving the number 40 Dodge Avenger, which after a recent press release, will be sponsored by Fastenal. Fastenal is a construction supply distributor.  What has he done lately? Well, how about the reigning Indy 500 Champion for starters?  He also finished in the top seven in CART in four of six seasons. He also has 18 wins, 17 poles, 63 top fives, and 95 top ten finishes in his U.S. open wheel career making him the winningest British driver in U.S. open wheel history. That is a lot of clout to carry into your rookie season in any series. So here he is, the 2007 Indy Racing League Series Champion and 2007 Indy 500 winner, a rookie in Nascar’s Sprint Cup Series. This is one drover you will want to watch this year.

 Sam Hornish JR.

            Born in Bryan Ohio on July 2^nd 1979 in Bryan Ohio, Sam Hornish Junior also started his racing career at the young age of eleven by racing karts. At age 15 he started to come on strong with 19 wins in 55 starts before moving on to bigger and better things. He won rookie of the year honors when he ran his first year in the North American Toyota Atlantic Series, and went on to Indy cars where he won the very first two races he entered with Panther Racing. In 15 starts that year, Sam won five races and scored 11 top fives and is the only driver in IRL history to repeat winning two IRL Championships in a row. In 2003 Sam Hornish Junior moved on to Penske Racing and won his first race out of the box with them. Sam also has an Indy 500 trophy in his trophy case, winning the 90^th running of The Greatest Spectacle In Racing in 2006 with a last lap pass getting around Marco Andretti in a breathtaking finish that had me holding my breath.

Sam Hornish Junior has stood on the podium 47 times, has 62 top fives in 116 starts and leads the IRL in wins and career points with 19 wins and 3428 career points. He too will be one to watch as he also ran some Nationwide Series races last year gaining valuable seat time. Sam will be driving for the Sprint Cup Series team of Penske South, driving the number 77 Dodge sponsored by Mobil 1.

Patrick Carpentier

            Born on August 13, 1971 in Ville LaSalle Quebec Canada, He also cut his teeth as a child by racing karts. After rocketing up through the ranks of the local Quebec kart ranks he made it to Champ Car and scored his first victory in 2001 at Michigan. He placed third in the championship in 2002. He left Champ Car in 2006 to join Eddie Cheever’s Indy Racing Team. It was thought that his experience on oval tracks could propel him up the ranks of IRL drivers. Uncompetitive Toyota engines prevented success in that series. He went on to the 2006 CASCAR series, a professional stock car series in Canada, and drove in the Super Series at Cayuga Speedway. He started 21^st and finished sixth. He then signed on to drive a Daytona prototype in the 2007 Grand American Road racing association. Patrick Carpentier made his debut in the then Busch Series race at Montreal’s Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on August fourth 2007. He qualified on the pole and finished the race in second place. He will be driving the # 10 Valvoline Dodge Avenger in the Evernham Racing stables. He too is one to watch, I am just not sure how he will do on oval tracks as most of his experience is on road courses. He did not run a lot of ovals in a stock car so don’t expect him to be up front anytime soon. I could be wrong but I doubt it.

Last But Not Least, Jacques Villeneuve

          Another French Canadian From Montreal, Jacques is the son of legendary Formula one driver Ailles Villeneuve who died during practice at the 1982 Belgium Grand Pre. At age thirteen, after improving on his math grades (a stipulation from his mother), he was allowed to race a 100 cc kart and he was on his way up from there. In 1992 he won three races in the Japanese Formula Three Series and finished the season second in points. In 1993 he joined the North American Toyota Atlantic Series and scored 7 poles and 5 wins in 15 starts. He won the CART Series Championship in 1995, the Indy 500 and Canada’s Athlete Of The Year. Patrick Carpentier come to Bill Davis Racing with an impressive resume and some stock car experience as well. Well sorta, he raced in the last seven races in the Nascar Craftsman Truck Series last year. Villeneuve will be driving the number 27 Toyota Camry with sponsorship to be announced as of yet.

 ”Sponsorship for the #27 program has not yet been finalized,” said Team Owner Bill Davis.  “We’re out talking to companies across a range of categories.  The 50th Daytona 500 is a great opportunity to debut as a car sponsor.”I would not worry about sponsor exposure because if he isn’t in the front of the pack he will more than likely find himself in the big wreck and then the sponsor will get seen. It may not be the kind of exposure they want but they will get seen. I’m not sure what the hold up is on the sponsorship but time is running out for the start of the fiftieth running of
The Great American race. They wouldn’t be the first team to announce sponsorship on the eve of the 500 and I doubt that they will be the last either.

Who will be the success story? 

         If pre-season testing lap times were any indication, I would put my money on Dario Franchitti. He did well at the testing in Daytona and not bad on the smaller tracks of Las Vegas and The California Speedway. What really matter in the case of each of the four drivers that I talked about here is the ability to adapt to a car that is a whole different animal that what they have driven in their open wheel careers. I hate to quote “Days Of Thunder” but it is true, they are all coming out of cars that ran in excess of 220 MPH with really wide, sticky tires. They are now going to be driving cars that are a whole lot heavier and run at slower speeds down in the 180’s. Car control will be a major factor in any one of the fours success. Not to under drive or over drive the car will be a challenge along with learning the stock cars limits will be the chore. I’m not sure however, that the tight, bunched up 180+ MPH pack of cars at The Daytona 500 is the right place to start. You can’t be eligible for rookie of the year honors if you don’t start there though. I will for sure, find it funny though to call any one of these veteran racers a rookie. It just doesn’t seem to fit. At any rate, these four gentlemen will darn sure make the 50^th running of the Daytona 500 even more interesting, not to mention the rest of the season. Stay tuned here for more Nascar news right here on your home of the open road driver.

 LIFE ON THE ROAD