Just past the halfway point of the season, the much anticipated (and criticized) open wheel transplants are finding the transition into stock car racing was perhaps not as easy as they first thought. From Jacques Villeneuve to Scott Speed the success these men have had has varied, but the common theme among them all has been a season plagued by adversity.
Let’s start with Jacques Villeneuve. He is the son of former F1 driver Gilles Villeneuve and the 1995 Cart Champion, 1995 Indianapolis 500winner and 1997 F1 champion. By every indication he has great talent behind the wheel of a car. His foray into NASCAR began in August 2007 with Bill Davis Racing. In two Cup series starts he has a best start of sixth and best finish of 21st. After failing to qualify for this season’s Daytona 500, BDR shut down the team and sent Villeneuve packing. Since then he has been competing in the Speedcar Series where he is currently 14th in points. He will be making his first NASCAR start since Daytona this weekend in the Nationwide Series race at Montreal for Braun Racing, but it appears it’s a one off deal.
A fellow French Canadian, Patrick Carpentier joined Gillett-Evernham Motorsports last season after 10 years in CART and IRL. The highlight of his season came at Loudon earlier this year when he picked up his first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series pole. Despite this, his average qualifying position hovers around 26th and his average finish position is about 30th. His less than spectacular season may end with him out of the #10 car. Jayski has reported and I am hearing similarly that Carpentier is on the way out at GEM.
Dario Franchitti joined Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates last season after winning the Indianapolis 500 and IRL championship. He was at the top of his career in that series, but after several severe wrecks, and the need for a new challenge Franchitti made the leap to NASCAR. After just eight races this season Franchitti was injured in a wreck at Talladega that kept him out of the car until Pocono. Despite some decent finishes in the Nationwide Series, Franchitti’s average Cup Series start was 28th and average finish was 34th. Just before the July event at Daytona Ganassi shut down the #40 cup team, citing lack of sponsorship as the reason. He will now compete in seven races in Nationwide beginning next week, while he presumably tries to figure out what to do next season.
Team Red Bull teammates Scott Speed and AJ Allmendinger are on opposite ends of the success spectrum. Speed, a former F1 driver, has won races in the ARCA series and in the Craftsman Truck Series. I know he is very confident about where is going and might just have what it takes to back it up. Allmendinger on the other hand has struggled over the last two seasons. He failed to qualify for 19 races last season, only achieving an average start and finish of 28th and 31st in the races he did make. While he has shown some improvement over the last couple of weeks with new crew chiefJimmy Elledge, they are still a long way from where they need be. My bet is, he is just warming the seat until Speed can get some more experience.
That brings us to the final two open wheel newcomers, Juan Pablo Montoya and Sam Hornish Jr. JPM has shown himself to be the most promising of the transplants. He has a win in both the Nationwide Series and Cup Series and a top 20 position (most weeks) in the points. The former CART Champion, Indy 500 and F1 winner came to NASCAR amidst great fanfare. His unique personality has meant clashes with other big name drivers and a definite division with fans. While he has struggled this season he is doing better than any of his open wheel counterparts. If Ganassi can get past their COT block he may be able to show something. On the other end is Sam Hornish Jr. who hesitantly made the transition into stock car racing. The former IRL star has 19 wins in 116 starts and three IRL championships. Despite great success on that end, he has struggled in NASCAR averaging a 30th place finish.
The great disparity that exists between a NASCAR car and an Indy car has made the transition very difficult. While an Indy car has great grip, is light weight, stops quickly and turns on a dime, a NASCAR car is heavy, hard to control, stops very slowly and does not turn very well. It is the difference between a Ferrari and a Crown Victoria and most have found that difficult to acclimate to. While a few more drivers may make the switch, my bet is the open wheel invasion is over. The plan has blown up in a lot of team owner’s faces and the idea they would take the risk again is highly unlikely. Likewise for those drivers who are out or on the way out they will likely not find a ride waiting for them if and when they do find sponsorship. The open wheel boom looks to have finally gone bust and those caught in the middle are paying for it with their careers.
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on Aug 2nd, 2008 at 9:34 am
I thought this site was about inside info, not “my bet is…”
Im not even an AJ fan, but what he has done after getting taken out of that seat has been impressive. He has nearly clawed his way back into the top 35.
Heres some real inside info, expect a merger with BDR or a 3rd RBR team to support Scott Speed.
Also, you forgot Tony Stewart on the list. If you will remember, he had some awful years in the Shell #44 JGR Busch car before he started running decent in cup. It takes time, dont expect an overnight transformation.
on Aug 2nd, 2008 at 10:23 am
Matt - As much as we do know about the inner workings of these organizations I am not privy to what goes on in the minds of these team owners and most of the time the closed door meetings. And Tony Stewart was not on the list because as I mention several times this was about the new class of open wheel guys, not a historical look at open wheel drivers in NASCAR.
on Aug 2nd, 2008 at 1:40 pm
I suppose the obvious question is, how many of them went into NASCAR saying ‘this is going to be easy’? Villeneuve and JPM are cocky sods with overinflated opinions of their own talent, so it wouldn’t surprise me if they expected to sweep all before them, but in general haven’t the drivers crossing over done so in full awareness that they faced a challenge? For most of them, it was a case of wanting to try a new challenge having fulfilled all their ambitions in open-wheel racing - not of them thinking they’d come over because it would be a series of easy wins. Scott Speed might be the exception - we never could figure what the hell he was doing in F1 so he’s probably better off where he is now.
Interesting post - especially on the differences between the cars. Thanks!
on Sep 4th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Mr. ANDY you need to be informed before you make staments that are , well let just say not smart, not one time did i hear JPM or any of the other open- drivers say NASCAR would be easy , if you read it somewhere please tell me and ill go read it. I do agree those folks are arrogant ,cocky overconfident etc. etc. BUT “overinflated opinion of their own talent” this 2 drivers have FI championship , cart champ , f300 champ etc. etc. too many to mention ,Juan has won 2 of the holy grail of racing , Monaco and Indy500 also multiple winner of the daytona 24 etc , well look it up and you will see (specially Juan) there is nothing overinflated about their resume…lol
on Sep 25th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Hey Journo, do you think Montoya would have produced way better results with a top NASCAR team? Is his talents being wasted with the Ganassi operation?