NASCAR has traditionally brought in talent for their road course races. Road courses take a different skill than ovals and NASCAR teams know that. If they didn’t, I have no idea how many fans Boris Said would actually have.
Today’s Nationwide Series race at Road Atlanta was an event to remember for the former Formula One driver Nelson Piquet Jr. Piquet was embroiled int he Renault F1 Singapore 2008 scandal and has spent the last few years nursing his wounds and performing very well in the NASCAR truck series but today was a different matter as the Brazilian made only his third Nationwide Series start by taking pole and winning the race.
Piquet Jr. was happy with his performance:
“I struggled a little bit in the beginning. But when I got some clean air, I took control,” said Piquet.
“The car was great. I just had to make sure I didn’t make any mistakes.”
That’s big news for Piquet fans but perhaps the bigger news was the return of Formula 1 Champion Jacques Villeneuve (JV) to NASCAR racing as he faced off against the field running well in the closing laps. Running even better was former Indycar driver and marketing juggernaut Danica Patrick who appeared to have a top 5 result in the bag until JV punted the diminutive female racer and then blamed Max Papis:
Danica finished 12th while JV achieved a 6th place finish.
