http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...uery=star+racer

 

here's more from NASCAR.com

http://www.nascar.com/2006/news/headlines/...bull/index.html

i think it's a good move for him....he's a great driver, he's still very young, etc.

as we've all seen, driving in the IRL or CART is a dead-end gig.....no one from F1 is gonna come calling anymore....the zanardi, montoya, daMatta days are over....who btw, all came from CART. @ IRL

look at bourdais, 3 titles in a row, and not a single call....not even for a test.

 

Actually Bourdais got offered testing roles at high end teams but didn't want to be a tester.

Blah... I'm not crazy about NASCAR and I think AJ going to NASCAR is a waste of talent. It's more of a money move for him.

Keith

 

that sucks........ another $ sucking freeloader turning ... which way was that?

 

It's funny, when guys that have F1 victories and ALMS victories and Indy 500 victories decide they want to go to race NASCAR, a bunch of sports car owners who have never once been paid to race decry them as selling out. Maybe you guys might consider that they know something you don't?

 

That's one way to look at. There are some of us who have loved open-wheeled racing and sports car road racing all our lives and would like to see those sports make a comeback to the marketing strangle hold that NASCAR holds over racing in the US. An American driver like AJ is the kind of person who could help to bring that about but he chose not to and for me that sucks big time.

 

AJ.
Ricky Carmichael.
Sam Hornish.
JPM.

And in previous years, I recall that Tony Stewart came to NASCAR via open wheel racing.

These guys all came to NASCAR, and it's not because they can't drive and just want to crash into other cars, or any of the other stupid things you will see on F1-centric forums like this one. Partly it's for the money, and partly it's for the top-flight competition. They are racers and they want to race other drivers. In most years, F1 is all about the cars and not the drivers.

Yes, a spec series like NASCAR deliberately freezes the car technology in many respects, but that's also what makes a spec series competitive. That's why Spec Miata is so popular at local racetracks around the country, even though a Spec Miata is nobody's idea of a cutting edge racecar.

You sound like the soccer fans who complain every four years that the US goes crazy for the Superbowl but mostly ignores the World Cup. Well, that's the way it is. I'm a huge baseball fan, but I don't complain that people in England ignore the World Series. That's just the way it goes.

CART/IRL slit their own throats when they split up. And sports car racing is in some in-between limbo where it is too expensive for privateers and not rewarding enough for factory teams and sponsors.

The healthiest and fastest growing pro sports car racing organization in the US is Grand-Am right now -- and they are mostly owned by NASCAR. You just might see NASCAR being the ones who revive US interest in sports car racing....

 

A.J.

 

You forgot Dan Gurney, Fireball Roberts, Mario, etc. Sure lots of great open-wheeled drivers drove in different kinds of series including NASCAR. So what?

 

Right. I'll put my money on the other series.