Or should it be the Bahrain
643.74? Either way it would be a hot race. Pun intended.
Some time ago I ran across
a small article that said "Hosting NASCAR is on the minds of the management at the Bahrain International Circuit," said BIC
director of PR and government affairs Shaikh Salman bin Isa Al Khalifa who has just returned from the US after heading a fact-finding
delegation. They took in the Indy 500, a single-seater race as they put it, and a NASCAR Cup race, a two seater one assumes,
although only one seat is allowed during the actual race. However, there is a two-seater featured on Wally’s World
and who knows maybe that is where they got the single-seater thing.
Is such a thing even
possible? Who knows? NASCAR is ready to expand their horizons they now have a Busch race in Mexico
and Canada. Can Bahrain
be far behind?
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Bahrain
is a remarkable island country/nation. Located in the ArabGulf
it sports a wonderful man-made ski slope (machine type snow makers – it doesn’t snow in Bahrain
very often, as a matter of fact never) enclosed inside a huge, we’re talking a really big, building. A Formula one race
track and several man-made smaller islands shaped like palm trees. And of course in that neck of the woods there are a lot
of very rich oil folks. It would be a rather interesting engineering challenge to create an oval track that had a hundred
thousand seat capacity inside a big ol’ building. But believe me after seeing some of the stuff these ol’ boys
have constructed this should be no problem, maybe a Bristol clone or a one
mile cookie cutter track.
With money to burn these folks
could well afford to build a world class oval race track. The logistics of getting the Cup cars half way around the
world might be a little tricky, but what the hell if there was enough money involved I feel confident that the France family
would figure a way to get it done. After all didn’t they take the Cup cars to Japan
once? BIC general manager Martin Whitaker is predicting that on the Formula One side of racing that in a year or two Bahrain
will have its own driver. Whitaker said, "The great thing is that, we have got a number of young drivers who are now
cutting their teeth at an international level and two youngsters - Shaikh Salman bin Rashid Al Khalifa and Hamad Al Fardan
- are doing a great job for us”. So with Juan Pablo Montoya coming from the ranks of Formula One and Two-time
Indy Racing League champion and Indy 500 winner Sam Hornish Jr. from the Penske stable seriously thinking of moving to NASCAR,
who would doubt what Khalifa or Fardan could do with a little coaching and a few races under their belt in a Cup car they
could join the ranks of Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr.
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An interesting question;
would the 8-Budweiser, 2-Miller Lite, 07-Jack Daniel’s and the 40-Coors Light cars be able to participate with the current
sponsorship? As I understand it alcoholic beverages are discouraged in Muslim countries.
It would be interesting
to hear the likes of Larry McReynolds get his tongue around, Shaikh Salman bin Rashid Al Khalifa. I can only imagine what
Darrell Waltrip would do with that one.
2006 StockCar Review.
