Nelson Piquet Jr., whose most notable accomplishment in an 18-month Formula One career was crashing his car on purpose, will be competing in NASCAR for 2010. Piquet has not revealed which team he will be driving for but he did call NASCAR “the ultimate challenge” in a recent interview. Brian France must have written that script.
The reports we have read put him in the truck series for his introductory season. Moving from the most technologically advanced automobiles on the planet into racing pickup trucks will be quite an adjustment for Piquet and should provide some interesting entertainment in early season races. We’re wondering on the over/under for one of the hard running truck racers to make some “accidental” contact with Piquet while hauling ass down a back stretch or entering a corner. If there is a series in the NASCAR fold where contact is heavy, the truck series sure is it. There are few straight panels left on any of the pick-em-ups when the dust settles at the end of the night.
Think he even knows what a pickup truck is?
Some quick notes for Piquet Jr:
- There are far fewer buttons on the steering wheel of a stock car.
- You’ll need to throw out your book of high falutin’ European racing terminology and boil it down to “loose” and “tight”
- When Jimmy Spencer interviews you, realize that it is not an animal on his head. You stand no risk of whatever it is that resides on his dome leaping off and causing you harm.
- There are still scads of hot chicks at the races.
- There is a lever sticking up through the floor of the car, this is known as a shifter. There are no paddles beind the steering wheel. You’ll need to move this device in an H pattern to move through the gears.
- There are only four gears. That’s not a misprint. Four forward gears
- You’ll never have to race in the rain again!
- No one will ask you to wreck your car on purpose. We’re sure you’ll not need any help in that department.
- Go fast….turn left!
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, Piquet Jr Comes to NASCAR
