When reigning Indianapolis 500 and IndyCar Series champion Dario Franchitti attempts to qualify for Saturday's NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series event at Martinsville Speedway, he will discover just what former open-wheel racers Jacques Villeneuve, Juan Pablo Montoya, Scott Speed and Sam Hornish Jr have.
Although all are respected for what they have achieved in their previous careers, the move to the NASCAR arena is not one to be taken lightly, and Franchitti will find that he needs to earn his spurs before he can overcome being viewed as an outsider in the sport.
“I thought it might be hard to be accepted [in NASCAR], but it really wasn't because, across the board, the racing community has camaraderie,” Mario Andretti, who successfully made the transition between open-wheel and stock cars, explained to
SPEEDTV, “Among the drivers, I never felt like I was out of place or not accepted. If you earn your respect and you don't do stupid things, and you show that you have respect for them and you do well, you'll be respected back.
“These guys are well-established in their field and the drivers know the quality of driver they're dealing with. These guys are not fools - they're not going to do stupid things. There was a lot of speculation about Juan Montoya at first, but all that was dispelled pretty quickly, and I think it's going to be the same with these [other] guys. If you're going to make the move and make the commitment, you've got to deal with all these elements.”
Being welcomed by the NASCAR fans might prove a more challenging order, though, according to the man who won in NASCAR, F1, sportscars and CART.
“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.
