“Americans want to cheer for Americans,” veteran journalist Robin Miller agrees, “When CART was in its heyday in the early and mid-'90s, and had Franchitti and Christian Fittipaldi, they were great world class drivers, but there were still Americans like Robby Gordon, Scott Pruett, Michael Andretti, Jimmy Vasser, Danny Sullivan and Al Unser Jr. It was a great melting pot of talent. The people that went to the CART races loved the fact that there were great foreign drivers there but you're talking about a whole different animal in NASCAR.”
Even if every NASCAR fan in America embraces this rush of foreign and open wheel drivers, the welcome mat will not teach these newcomers the idiosyncrasies of piloting a stock car. Patience and learning to finesse the heavy machines are two of the toughest lessons to master.
“When Paul Tracy drove the Busch races last year, he said it's different because you can't be that aggressive and you have to be patient,” Miller recalls, “NASCAR races are not one-and-a-half or two-hour races like these open-wheel guys are used to. You can't go for the throat and run as hard as you can the whole race. These guys have to focus on conserving tyres, staying awake, making 9000 pit-stops and trying not to crash. Franchitti is a very patient guy and it might play to his strengths because he's got 500-mile races to get the car dialled in.”
Demanding more from the car than it is capable of giving can be one of the pitfalls awaiting the open-wheel newcomers, according to Andretti.
