GOING TO CIRCUIT GILLES VILLENEUVE

 

AMBROSE AND EDWARDS

Getting ready for this Saturday’s Daytona Prototype debut at Montreal’s Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, NASCAR Sprint Cup and Nationwide series regulars John Edwards and Marcos Ambrose, respectively at middle and at near right pictured with Kevin Doran, far left, tested Doran’s No. 77 Ford-Dallara at VIRginia International Raceway Aug. 18.

Roush Fenway Racing’s Edwards and JTG Daugherty Racing’s Ambrose each have two Nationwide Series starts at the 15-turn, 2.71-mile road course situated on the Isle of Notre Dame and surrounded by the waters of the St. Lawrence River. In the two Nationwide races held thus far at the course, Ambrose has  posted one top-five and one top-10 finishes; Edwards a top-10.

“I love racing at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve,”  Edwards said. “The Montreal fans are great and to have two opportunities to race there next weekend is just awesome.” 

In 2009 NASCAR action, Edwards and his No. 60 CitiFinancial Ford currently is second to points leader Kyle Busch in the Nationwide Series and is fifth in the Sprint Cup Series’ championship hunt.

After finishing 8th (2007) and 10th (2008) in his first two NASCAR Nationwide Series seasons, Ambrose for 2009 switched to a fulltime ride in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series, where he’s currently 17th in the standings. Still, Ambrose occasionally climbs into the Jodi Geschickter-owned No. 47 Armor All Toyota Nationwide car – particularly for road courses. He won the Nationwide Watkins Glen race Aug. 8 and the following day finished second to Tony Stewart’s first-place in NASCAR Sprint Cup action.

“It’s a great track (where) I’ve always had a chance to win,” Ambrose said of Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, where the driver currently holds the record for number (64) of first-place laps. “But I haven’t won it yet and I’m going to keep going until I do.”

A DP rookie like Edwards - even though itching to drive a DP since the 2007 Mexico City race - Ambrose nonetheless has one Rolex Series start, a pretty impressive one at that.

Competing in the 2005 Rolex 24 At Daytona with fellow Australians Paul Morris, Craig Baird and John Teulan in the No. 00 Porsche GT3, Ambrose and his mates, aggregately named the “Aussie Assault,” finished a dismal 53rd overall (of 62 cars starting the race), completing an official 271 laps. However, for about 260 of those laps the team rarely ran lower than third place; was easily among the quickest cars in the GT field; and, for the better part of the race’s seventh and eighth hours had compiled a one-lap lead on the GT field. A bum transmission was the team’s Achilles heel, ending their race in Saturday’s late-evening hours.

Before coming to NASCAR in 2006, Ambrose scored 27 road course victories in his native Australia and has since won NASCAR races at Watkins Glen. Ambrose dominated the 2007 Nationwide Montreal race before a late-race Robby Gordon punt – for which Gordon was reprimanded – and the result of which all but handed the race win to Kevin Harvick. 

HOW ‘BOUT THOSE SPORTY CAR GUYS?

Fully one-third of the drivers entered for Sunday’s NASCAR Nationwide Series Napa Auto Parts 200 presented by Dodge in Montreal come from or have considerable road racing backgrounds.

A couple of those, Brendan Gaughan and Andy Lally, are teaming in the No. 66 TRG Porsche GT for Saturday’s Rolex Series race and on Sunday the two are hoping to be in that day’s Nationwide race, Lally in the Johnny Davis owned No. 0 Chevrolet; Gaughan in the Rusty Wallace owned No. 62 US Fidelis Chevrolet.

Lally has at least one start in each of NASCAR’s Sprint Cup and Nationwide series, most recently scoring a cherished Sprint Cup start three weeks ago in NASCAR Sprint Cup at Watkins Glen.

2006 Rolex Series DP “Shadow” Champion (yes, Jorge Bergmeister solely was awarded that year’s title but had a powerful assist from) Colin Braun, who will sprint (as will Kyle Busch) from Saturday’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Chicagoland for his No. 16 3M Ford ride at Montreal. Though he didn’t run in the 2008 race, Braun nevertheless was there to set up Greg Biffle’s 2008 eventual eighth-place-finishing Montreal car. Brad Coleman, who teamed with Braun (and Adrian Carrio for the Rolex 24) in 2005 as a part of TRG’s ”Sweet 16” team, is running the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Chevrolet. in the 2008 race Coleman finished eighth.

Jean François Dumoulin (“We just call him ‘JF,’” said AIM Autosport’s Ian Willis, who helped steer the No. 61 AIM Ford-Riley to a win at Montreal in 2008) is entered in both races, running AIM’s No. 51 Tower Events Ford-Riley with Toronto’s John Farano.

Dumoulin, a 2004 and 2007 Rolex 24 At Daytona class winner, has been racing at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve for years, cutting his first racing lines there in Formula Ford. Dumoulin, along with Willis, appeared regularly on the “Racer” TV reality series, filmed at Circuit Mont-Tremblant, about a 90-minute drive north of Montreal.

“Montreal is almost a hometown race for me,” Dumoulin said. “When I started racing in Formula Ford that was our biggest race of the season. I am happy to be back this year, especially in a Rolex Series Daytona Prototype with a good, established team. I think we have a strong package.”

Driving Johnny Davis’ No. 23 Mahindra Chevrolet, Dumoulin is a Nationwide Series teammate to Lally.

Boris Said, Max Papis, Justin Marks, Michael McDowell, Paul Menard (successfully raced a Spirit of Daytona GTS Corvette before going “NASCAR”), JR Fitzpatrick and still others are strong road racers.

 

PLEASE, DON’T KILL THE MESSENGER

Good since ancient times, the above message stands true today, inasmuch as media types (that is, those who hold journalism’s tenets near and dear) often only can convey facts provided by others, however conflicting they at times may be.

Case in point: NASCAR’s Rolex Series folks say the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve is 2.708-miles in length whereas their NASCAR Nationwide Series counterparts claim the course to be 2.709-miles in length.

Given that the French (and, um, most Montreal inhabitants don’t think themselves anything but) are inclined toward using the far more rationally intelligent metric system, yours truly grabbed the course’s length in official  units Thinking the difference may have occurred in “translation”

Leaving no stone unturned in the determination of whose truth was truest, it occurred to ol’ DC to turn to the one place where the measurement’s metric counterpart would likely be most accurate. Given that many an F1 race had been held at the track (with more in the future, just wait and see), he clicked to Formula One's Statistics site (which also has a wonderful interactive Circuit Gilles Villeneuve map) and found the track’s measurement to be 4.361 kilometers.

Appropriately armed and given the fact his slide rule’s distinguishing characteristics had long ago worn away, Ol’ DC then went to his favorite unit converter site and commenced converting, which produced 2.7098-miles.

Thus, rounding to the next-highest increment, we come up with 2.71 miles. Now, lest anyone think such to be a gross misstatement of fact, the distance-difference in rounding up is slightly more than 6-inches but waaaay less than 7-inches.

Got that?

And, speaking of marathons, check out the above Circuit Gilles Villeneuve satellite image.

See the narrow rectangle, diagonally running at the image’s center. It is the Isle of Notre Dame rowing basin used in 1976 Montreal Summer Olympics competition. Note the scale at lower right. The Rolex Series’ paddock is located at the top of that rectangle of water, the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve pits (along with start/finish line) is located at the rectangle’s lower left. Rolex Series teams, and anyone else who may wish to hang out in the paddock but also wish to see the cars on track must travel almost the basin’s entire length for and between EACH practice, qualifying and race.

To put it mildly, team carts get a workout. Others, bereft of transporters and other cart-access means, must walk that distance which, round-trip, easily exceeds two miles and the reason yours truly will “bulk-up” for the Montreal race – if nothing else because eating between walks isn’t easily achieved, either.

Oh, what we go through so as to communicate information to those who can’t attend races: foreign lands, rare sites, meet wonderful people and, in this case, experience a truly international and cosmopolitan Montreal. It’s a tough life, but someone’s got to do it.

 

LISTEN IN

Tonight’s guests on Grand-Am Weekly are Brendan Gaughan, Andrew Davis, winner with co-driver Robin Liddell of the 2008 Montreal GT race, as well as once-frustrated-driver-turned-frustrated car owner Mike Shank, whose Michael Shank Racing fields the No. 6 and 60 Ford-Riley’s in Daytona Prototype competition. Shank will get to fulfill a lifelong dream as it is he who will test drive at Indianapolis Sept. 3 – finally realizing a dream unrealized as an open-wheel driver.

Join JJ O’Malley, producer Wyatt Davis and yours truly from 7:05 p.m. (following ABC national news) to 8 p.m. EDT Tuesday on WELE 1380 AM Sports Radio – get LIVE Web stream by clicking here!  

Later,

DC