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Monday Morning Crew Chief (Saturday edition)

Can Villeneuve Get Back On Top In NASCAR?

Can Jacques Villeneuve re-locate the success that eluded him in his later years in F-1 by moving into NASCAR?

Given that the Canadian is a former Indy 500 winner, CART champion and World Championship winner, there’s no reason to believe otherwise. But there’s two very large question marks looming.

Unlike former Indy 500 winner and CART champion Juan Pablo Montoya, Villeneuve does not have sponsorship already lined up for the seasons ahead in NASCAR. Nor is he returning to a longstanding team owner relationship. In fact, an informal conversation with journalists at the back of the team hauler by Bill Davis at Bristol is the only official word on Villeneuve’s status with the team.

Secondly, though Montoya was a disappointment in F-1 to many and a pariah to some, he was not the enigma that Villeneuve became during his later years in F-1.

The Canadian’s deal with Bill Davis Racing, according to sources close to the Toyota team, is a trial balloon looking for sponsorship. That course of action will begin Sept. 22 in Las Vegas at the Craftsman Truck Series event. He is scheduled to run the final seven Truck Series events and possibly the ARCA race at Talladega. The BDR website, meanwhile, says a start in the Nextel Cup is a possibility before the season is over.

So Villeneuve has his work cut out for him. The BDR team is already shopping the driver Villeneuve is scheduled to replace in the Truck Series, Ryan Mathews, for sponsorship. But there’s nothing to lose by placing Villeneuve in the unsponsored seat in the meantime.

As far as sponsorship for the Canadian goes, Villeneuve brings interest from a promising TV market in a large and affluent country where NASCAR would like to continue to expand.

Three years ago, I was in the province of Quebec for a brief vacation prior to the start of the inaugural Championship Chase. My wife and I searched high and low (i.e. in sports bars equipped with satellite dishes) for any coverage of NASCAR on TV to no avail the night of the Richmond race. The search in the print media afterward was equally dismal.

Having just been in Ontario recently, the situation was quite different. Not only did the local version of ESPN in Toronto carry the Nextel Cup race live from Bristol, it had long updates on the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series. In Quebec, a capacity crowd was on hand in Montreal last month to see the first Busch Series race at the track named for Jacque’s father Gilles Villeneuve. And, one of Montreal’s dailies has been following the Nextel Cup since the beginning of the season.

Despite a successful test and the likelihood Villeneuve can handle stock cars as well as ovals, the problem will be coming up with sponsorship. (This assumes Villeneuve and business manager Craig Pollock are not interested in seeding a Nextel Cup opportunity with some of the former world champion’s millions.)

The level of sponsorship for next year’s re-named Sprint Cup demands an American-based company that can leverage its investment in the 36-race schedule stateside. But like Montoya, who is backed by Chevron’s Texaco Havoline brand, it’s possible to locate a multi-national corporation with strong ties to Canada that would seize this kind of opportunity.

But which Jacques Villeneuve would a sponsor be backing? The desultory former champion — or a guy willing to do what it takes to win the Daytona 500?

In his defense, Villeneuve went down the same wrong road that others have succombed to in F-1 such as Jenson Button or more recently Rubens Barrichello. They all believed in the engineers at Honda and later in full ownership of the former BAR team by Honda. When the music stopped on his eight-figure contract (reputed to be as much as $15 million per year), there wasn’t much in the way of opportunity for Villeneuve outside of Sauber. Where Button outran Villeneuve at Honda, Felipe Massa and Robert Kubica did likewise at Sauber.

Midway in his Honda years, it was clear that Villeneuve was not nearly as committed as the guy who won the world title in 1997 with Williams. On the other hand, the Canadian tried his best to do such things as be the fastest guy through Eau Rouge at Spa no matter what the circumstances of his team or car. The results were not always pretty.

The longtime relationship with Pollock is also troubling. An ego-maniac who had a book published about himself as a preliminary to his deal to run BAT’s team as well as Villeneuve’s business affairs, former ski instructor Pollock soon became a laughingstock when it came to the sharp end of the business of F-1. But through it all, Villeneuve has never waivered in his loyalty. Together they have, after all, made a lot of money.

I for one would love to see the same energetic, switched on Jacques Villeneuve I first met in the Formula Atlantic series when he returns to the states in NASCAR. There was some indication indeed this may be the case at Le Mans this summer in his drive for Peugeot. But it remains to be seen which driver will try to run with the good ol’ stars.

Jonathan Ingram can be reached at jingrambooks.com.

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