As stories go in motoring, this one’s been about as uncertain as whether you might be detoured on your drive around Montreal. Next Wednesday, four days after she runs the NASCAR Nationwide Series NAPA 200 on Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, it seems we’ll finally get confirmation that Danica Patrick is going to put a full-time roof over her racing helmet.
Dinnertime on Thursday, timed for live television, Patrick and Jacques Villeneuve stepped into the media circus of a downtown hotel ballroom – a stock car parked in the lobby outside – to talk up this weekend’s fifth annual Montreal NASCAR race.
And as much as Patrick spoke eloquently about her eagerness to revisit the road-course she hasn’t raced since her development-series open-wheel days in 2004, she knew the question about her future was coming.
As it always is. “Sorry, there’s nothing new to report,” she fibbed in this months-long game of cat-and-mouse. “I watch the news and see it just like you guys do.”
Another layer of racing’s worst-kept secret had been peeled back before Patrick had touched down in Montreal mid-afternoon. Multiple sources were reporting that next week she will formally announce she’s leaving IndyCar’s Andretti Autosport to run a full Nationwide stock-car schedule in 2012 with JR Motorsports, along with a number of carefully chosen elite-level Sprint Cup races for Stewart-Haas Racing.
As outlined, the plan calls for the 29-year-old to move full-time into Sprint Cup in 2013 after a year of grooming in Nationwide. Confirmation is expected to come in Phoenix, headquarters of Patrick’s major sponsor and partner, Internet domain and Web colossus GoDaddy.com.
When it comes, it will be a terrific decision for Patrick and others. She has spent seven years in IndyCar and has pretty much done what she can with the equipment she’s been given.
NASCAR, meanwhile, could use the lightning-bolt of interest her arrival would bring, and stock-car racing offers fresh opportunities for everyone, both on and off the track.
But that’s all for next week, and beyond. For these microphones and notebooks, Patrick and Villeneuve spoke thoughtfully about this race and their hopes for the weekend.
Asked about the uncertain future of the NAPA 200, Villeneuve repeated his oft-spoken sentiment that “it would be a shame if this race disappears because it’s good for us and good for the town, for Canada, Montreal and Quebec.”
For her part, Patrick expects the Villeneuve circuit to be narrower than it was when she was racing Toyota Atlantic here, thanks to her now wider car. “It looks like if you don’t crash, basically, you’ll probably finish in the top 10 for sure,” she said. “But it’s very easy to get into a crash. Especially at the end, it looks like it’s red mist for drivers and it turns into chaos.”
Villeneuve knows a thing or two about that, having wrecked here in 2008 during a driving rain under caution. He finished third last year. In his most recent race, June’s road-course at Road America, he caused a multi-car crash while finishing third, a mishap that dented fenders and feelings. Now, he’s back in that same Penske Racing Dodge, the best Nationwide car he’s had in Montreal.
So does he feel that this is his race to lose?
“Elkhart was my race to lose and I managed to do that,” he said, laughing. “I don’t need to do that again here.”For Patrick, the challenges are clear for her first road-course race in a 3,400-pound Chevrolet, running against someone who’s very special to her:
“(Villeneuve) was probably the only driver I really thought I wanted to be like,” she said. “Usually I say that I had no heroes or role models. (But) Jacques is the only one I looked up to and though: ‘Man, if I could do something like (what he achieved in open-wheel racing), that would be amazing.’
“It’s really hard to see out of these cars,” she said, switching to the technicalities. “I’ve asked (crew members) to add extra mirrors for me and get them to a position where I can see as much as possible. And I’ve heard the brakes are a real challenge, that they don’t last very long.”
Villeneuve, Patrick and 41 other drivers will to try shoehorn almost 93 combined tonnes of car into the Senna Corner a few ticks past 2:30 Saturday afternoon. Their paths are among the storylines that are as varied and intriguing as they are plentiful:
A heated Nationwide Series championship points race resumes between leader Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and his closest pursuers, Ricky Sorenson (10 points back), Elliott Sadler (24), Aric Almirola (70) and Justin Allgaier (80).
Three of four former Montreal winners are expected in the field: Toronto’s Ron Fellows (2008); Carl Edwards (2009); and Boris Said (2010). They’re joined by road-course wizard Marcos Ambrose, who’s earned two poles and led 149 of the 249 laps he’s raced in four Montreal events – fully 60 per cent – without ever being first to the checkered flag.
On the tight, are-you-nuts-trying-to-pass-there? Île Notre-Dame layout, seven Quebecers will have the chance to, well, drive like Quebecers: Villeneuve; Patrick Carpentier, in his final career race; Alex Tagliani; Andrew Ranger; Maryeve Dufault, the first Canadian woman to run a Nationwide race; and brothers Jean-François and Louis-Philippe Dumoulin.
The high-octane, table-sagging smorgasbord opened Thursday with Discovery Day, an open house for fans to watch three support events run in practice – and in one case, hold its qualifying – ladled around an hour-long autograph session featuring Quebec drivers.
It continues in earnest Friday morning with three hours of main-event Nationwide practice, then an afternoon of action that will culminate at 5:05 p.m. with an expected 49 Nationwide cars vying for spots on the grid.
Organizers have added another autograph session for Saturday at 10 a.m., Patrick and Villeneuve surely to be the most popular of the 14 drivers who will take part.
Assuming she survives writer’s cramp, Patrick will arrive at the green flag with a nice database of friendly advice from fellow drivers whose kindness is guaranteed to be a rumour once the racing begins.
“I start with respect with drivers, I do,” she said, smiling. “I start off like we’re going to play fair. But if they get rowdy, then I will, too. You have to give it back or you’re going to continue to get pushed around.
“I think you’re going to have to use a fender here or there, but there’s a time and a place.”Don’t think for a heartbeat that this woman’s place isn’t in NASCAR.