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Ambrose, Edwards on front row in Montreal
By Reid Spencer
August 30, 2009
Some seven hours and myriad raindrops after failing to get their entry to the starting grid for Saturday's Grand-Am race, Marcos Ambrose and Carl Edwards overcame wet conditions to grab the front row for Sunday's Napa Auto Parts 200 Nationwide Series race.
Ambrose took at pole at 80.905 mph at 2.709-mile Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, and Edwards claimed the second starting position at 80.116 mph, after crashing during warmup laps the Kevin Doran-owned Rolex Grand-Am car he and Ambrose were to share for the race.
Ron Fellows (79.717 mph), last year's race winner, qualified third, followed by Boris Said (78.902 mph) and Brad Coleman (78.837 mph). Jacques Villeneuve, Justin Marks, Antonio Perez, Andrew Ranger and Paul Menard will start from positions six through 10, respectively.
Said, however, will start from the rear of the field after blowing an engine during his qualifying run.
Ambrose went out in the second of eight groups under the Nationwide road-course qualifying format, which features five- and six-car groups on the track at the same time. Edwards qualified in Group 6, and might have won the pole had he not been slowed by Jean Francois Dumoulin on his fourth and final lap.
"Can you believe it?" Ambrose said. "We go in the sports car race, and it ends so badly for us, and then we come out and lock the front row for the Nationwide race. It may be karma -- I don't know. I just feel really badly for Kevin Doran and the whole team there, because we destroyed that car for them. … But we've gone from zero to hero."
Edwards acknowledged that Dumoulin might have cost him the pole, but considering the events earlier in the day, Edwards was fine with the outcome.
"Today did not start out well," Edwards said. "Marcos Ambrose and Kevin Doran and all the guys put together a great Daytona Prototype car, and we worked really hard on it, and I put it in the fence before the race even started.
"So it's kind of fitting. I would have loved to have been on the pole today, but I took Marcos' opportunity to race -- at all -- in that race. He had his suit on and everything. He looked like the kid who woke up on the 24th of December and thought it was Christmas and found out it wasn't.
"He got the pole, and it probably worked out well. … I owed him one -- but now we're even."
JEFFREY EARNHARDT RECOVERS FROM PRACTICE CRASH
Making his second start In the Nationwide Series -- and his second on a road course -- Jeffrey Earnhardt was the victim of an off-road excursion in Saturday morning's practice session, but afterwards neither the driver nor the car was worse for wear.
"I hit a puddle of water and just hydroplaned and went straight into the wall," Earnhardt said. "It wasn't too bad. It was just body damage, and we've got it fixed now."
Earnhardt's assessment was on the money. He qualified the No. 40 Key Motorsports Chevrolet in 25th place for Sunday's race.
BUSCH HAS A TALENTED TEACHER
Series points leader Kyle Busch, winner of Friday night's Camping World Truck Series race at Chicagoland, made good use of the limited practice time he got at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on Saturday. To hone his road-course chops, Busch got a critique from former Formula One champion Jacques Villeneuve, son of the driver for whom the track was named.
"He got behind me a little bit so, I asked him what I looked like, and he said it looked like I did everything fine," said Busch, who made his 12th-place qualifying run in extremely wet conditions. "It was a little bit wet out there (in practice), and it started drying out. He said, 'You were driving like it was wet, like it was raining, which is good if it's raining, just remember that. But it started to dry out, so go back and go into the regular groove when it starts to dry out, you'll go faster.'
"I didn't see the track really drying out, so I wasn't sure to go back over and move over a little bit. He gave me some good pointers."
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Canadians Fellows, Carpentier knocked out early at NASCAR Nationwide race
By Yahoo Sports
August 30, 2009
MONTREAL — The top two finishers at last year's NAPA Auto Parts 200 didn't even make it halfway through the race this time around.
Defending champion Ron Fellows of Toronto and last year's runner-up Patrick Carpentier of Joliette, Que., were both knocked out early Sunday at the NASCAR Nationwide Series event at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
"This is my Daytona 500 for the Nationwide Series, so this is hard to take," Fellows said. "Worse than that, this car is wrecked."
Carpentier was making a charge from his starting position of 40th and was running in fourth place on the 16th lap when he missed a downshift coming out of the hairpin, causing the engine to rev too high and blow.
"It's the first time I've made a mistake like this, so it's too bad it happened in Montreal," said Carpentier, who finished second here two years straight. "It was going so well, we were passing two or three cars on every turn. We were moving up so quickly, that's what makes it that much more disappointing."
Carpentier was driving a Michael Waltrip-owned NAPA Toyota and, despite his poor qualifying position, he believed the car had enough to get him on the top step of the podium.
"I was still saving the brakes and saving the car, I wasn't spinning the wheels anywhere and we had really good traction," Carpentier said. "That's why I thought we were going to win. It's too bad to come off on a mistake like that, but we did it today."
If Carpentier was disappointed in himself, Fellows was more annoyed at being a victim of circumstance.
Fellows was working his way back into the race after being forced to pit on the race's third lap to fix a broken front splitter under the bumper, sending him to the back of the pack.
By the 26th lap, Fellows was back in a top-10 position when he was hit by Justin Allgaier, crumpling the entire right-hand side of his Rick Hendrick-owned Fastenal Chevrolet, which Fellows was driving in place of Dale Earnhardt Jr.
"I got hit so hard I banged my head pretty good," Fellows said. "It was crazy."
Fellows couldn't understand why Allgaier was being so aggressive so early in the race, calling it a "bonehead move."
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Quebec drivers give fans lots to cheer about at NASCAR Nationwide race
By Arpon Basu, The Canadian Press
August 30, 2009
MONTREAL — Quebecers Andrew Ranger, Jacques Villeneuve and Jean-Francois Dumontier gave the fans what they wanted to see by taking up three of the top seven spots in Sunday's NAPA Auto Parts 200 at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
Villeneuve, racing at the track named for his father, quickly got the idea that the caution-filled NASCAR Nationwide series event was not as much about racing as it was keeping your car in one piece.
"The key was just to survive because we were banging into each other all over the place," said the native of Iberville, Que. "Every corner, because of the double-file re-start, it was madness. You just have to go for it and hope you're not the one that gets caught out."
Ranger of Roxton Pond, Que., finished third after competing for the lead all afternoon, while Villeneuve was fourth and Dumontier of Trois-Rivieres, Que., finished a surprising seventh.
Dumontier crossed the finish line with smoke billowing out of his car after having trouble with his brakes the whole race, but he says he never lost hope that he would get to the finish.
"It was indescribable what I went through at the end," he said. "I learned a ton and I adored my experience. I was hoping for a top-10, so finally I got more than I hoped for."
But it was not a perfect day for Canadians as the five others in Sunday's field left the track disappointed.
Perhaps none more so than Alex Tagliani of nearby Lachenaie, Que., who was running in seventh on the final re-start of the race with one lap to go, but got caught up in a heap of cars on the second turn and wound up being the last car to cross the line in 26th.
"We passed 35 cars all day, we went from the back of the pack to the front about three times without a scratch," said Tagliani. "I don't understand how we can do 73 laps without a scratch, then all of a sudden, on one re-start everything gets totally destroyed."
J.R. Fitzpatrick of Cambridge, Ont., began the day with a victory in the NASCAR Canadian Tire series race, but in the main event he had his car break down on lap 69. Fitzpatrick, 21, was able to get back on the track and came within a lap of finishing the race, finally placing 27th.
D.J. Kennigton of St-Thomas, Ont., got into an accident with Steve Wallace on the 58th lap that ended his frustrating day, which began by him getting bounced from the podium and into fourth when Ranger spun him near the end of the Canadian Tire series race.
Both defending champ Ron Fellows of Toronto and last year's runner-up Patrick Carpentier of Joliette, Que., failed to reach the halfway point of Sunday's race.
"This is my Daytona 500 for the Nationwide Series, so this is hard to take," Fellows said. "Worse than that, this car is wrecked."
Carpentier was making a charge from his starting position of 40th and was running in fourth place on the 16th lap when he missed a downshift coming out of the hairpin, causing the engine to rev too high and blow.
"It's the first time I've made a mistake like this, so it's too bad it happened in Montreal," said Carpentier, who finished second here two years straight. "It was going so well, we were passing two or three cars on every turn. We were moving up so quickly, that's what makes it that much more disappointing."
Fellows was in a top-10 position on the 26th lap when he was hit by Justin Allgaier, crumpling the entire right-hand side of his Rick Hendrick-owned Fastenal Chevrolet, which Fellows was driving in place of Dale Earnhardt Jr.
"I got hit so hard I banged my head pretty good," Fellows said. "It was crazy."
Fellows couldn't understand why Allgaier was being so aggressive so early in the race, calling it a "bonehead move."
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Fitzpatrick edges series leader Ranger to win NASCAR Canadian Tire race
By The Canadian Press
August 30, 2009
MONTREAL — J.R. Fitzpatrick of Cambridge, Ont. won an incident-filled NASCAR Canadian Tire race ahead of series leader Andrew Ranger of Roxton Pond, Que., on Sunday at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
Ranger was running third during a restart on the 25th and final lap when he nudged second-place D.J. Keninngton at the start of a chicane, sending the St. Thomas, Ont., driver across the infield grass and back onto the track, where he forced Don Thomson of Hamilton to knock Scott Steckly of Milverton, Ont., whose car flipped over on the track. Thomson went into the wall.
Race officials ruled that Ranger would take second place, with Kerry Micks of Mount Albert, Ont., third and Kennington fourth. Ranger said Kennington should have retained the position he was in before the caution flag went up.
"I don't think it's fair that they put D.J. in fourth, " Ranger said, even though he benefited from the stewards' call.
Pole sitter Alex Tagliani of Lachenaie, Que., retired with his engine smoking after 11 laps. Former Montreal Canadiens defenceman Patrice Brisebois was 12th.
In the Formula Tour 1600 race, Matt White of Toronto took the 16-lap event ahead of Michel Bonnet of St-Bruno, Que., with his son Olivier Bonnet third. Series leader Didier Schraenen of Mont St-Hilaire, Que., was fifth.
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