Merv Casey Commentary 7-13-06

NASCAR vs. F1

July 13, 2006

Merv Casey - SCR

Jumpin’ gehosifat Juan Pablo is coming to NASCAR! In twenty five words or less who is Juan Pablo Montoya? A typical answer; he is a driver of an F1 race car. Now isn’t that nice? Maybe a few NASCAR fans know who he is from all the stories that have been written about Juan Pablo in the last two or three days. But I suspect that a typical fan of the Cup series knows little or nothing about the man.

European open wheel (not to be confused with American sprint cars) drivers have tried their luck at NASCAR before. Most have faded away in a season or two. But maybe, just maybe, Juan Pablo will be the exception; kinda like Tony Stewart who came from Indy cars. There is no doubt that he is a young (30) aggressive driver with a real thirst to win and it is possible that he rather imagines that he will be driving against bumpkins who talk funny. It would be real interesting to watch a conversation with him and Ward Burton and it will be really interesting to watch him as he gets bumped from the rear, or when he has a fender rubbin’ encounter with a Cup driver.

Just what is F1? Formula 1 racing is the Cadillac of all motor sports racing, or so it is said by the rich folks that follow the series as they jet around the world. F1 holds about 18 races going to such exotic places as Bahrain and Malaysia followed closely by their fans that can afford their own private jets. Many of the drivers like the places they race have exotic names that most of us NASCAR fans have a hard time getting our tongue around such as Giancarlo Fisichella, Kimi Raikkonen and Yuji Ide. So why would a top F1 driver even consider coming to race in America full time on nothing but oval tracks some of which are about a half mile long with banks that are to steep to walk up? Oh the Cup series throws in a couple of road races for good measure, but JP is used to touring the world and living the high life with some significant time between some of the races not a grueling 36 race season with just a couple of weekends off? Money? Probably not, F1 drivers do pretty well for themselves. Fame, maybe? I doubt it though as he is adored by millions around the world, maybe a top F1 driver has had a bad season or two and the owners of his car are looking to replace him? Or maybe the move is predicated by the open wheel folks are about ready to self destruct. The typical NASCAR fan doesn’t take to new drivers that come to the series from exotic places, but rather tend to know drivers that have worked their way up through the ranks of Craftsman trucks, Busch cars, off road racing and the Sprint cars. Well whatever, Juan Pablo is coming so we better be ready.

For the NASCAR fans that don’t know what F1 racing is all about I offer the following thoughts.

F1 cars don’t have fenders.

F1 cars sit really low to the ground and sound funny when they go by, kinda like an angry bee.

F1 cars run on exotic fuel not good ol’ leaded Sunoco.

F1 cars are full of instruments that tell the pit crew just what is happening to the car and driver.

F1 fans drink Champaign and eat caviar.

FI fans do not eat hotdogs and drink Bud.

F1 fans rent villas for the race weekend.

F1 fans do not have motor homes that they bring to the track to live in for the race weekend.

F1 cars are light and come apart in a spectacular fashion when they touch each other.

There is no “rubbin’ is racin’” in F1.

F1 drivers are screwed into the race car and do not look our through a safety net.

F1 cars are capable of running much faster than Cup cars on any given track but are somewhat boring to watch most of the time.

F1 car tracks in most places run around on city streets.

Last year Juan Pablo traded seats with Jeff Gordon in a one on one at the Indy race track using the infield road course and Jeff was able to drive the F1 car just as good as JP where as JP had a difficult time driving the #24 over the same course.

What ever the outcome with JP taking the seat in the #42 next season, or perhaps later this season in a companion car, he has a lot to learn about America’s favorite sport. It will no doubt be a cultural shock as well as a steep learning curve if he is going to survive. It is said that JP has a temper and is not particularly fan friendly, both bode ill for a driver that jumps from one series to another and skips the preliminaries to get used to how things are done in NASCAR. But in any event I wish him good driving and caution him to keep an eye on some of the more aggressive drivers. It will be very interesting the first time he gets the numbers on his car scraped off as someone trades a little paint with him, a real no no where he comes from.

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The views and opinions in this article are that of the writer and not necessarily that of SCR