NASCAR Montréal

[bxlmontreal]

Aide de 800 000$ pour le NASCAR à Montréal.

 

Le sport automobile est loin d'avoir fait son dernier tour de piste à Montréal. Jusqu'ici incertaine, la tenue de l'épreuve de NASCAR de Montréal est désormais assurée.

 

Les gouvernements du Canada et du Québec, la Ville de Montréal et Tourisme Montréal ont annoncé aujorud'hui mercredi un soutien de 800 000 $ pour la tenue de la course, qui aura lieu du 16 au 18 août au circuit du parc Jean-Drapeau.

 

Il s'agit de la seule course des séries majeures de NASCAR à l'extérieur des États-Unis.

 

Il y a un an, la ministre du Tourisme, Nicole Ménard, avait refusé de la financer. Elle avait en quelque sorte demandé au promoteur de la course, François Dumontier, de refaire ses devoirs parce que, selon elle, l'organisation n'avait pas su démontrer l'ampleur des retombées pour le Québec.

 

Il semble que, cette fois, la ministre a été satisfaite du document que lui a présenté François Dumontier. Nicole Ménard a précisé que le portrait est différent puisque les promoteurs ont su appuyer leurs prévisions sur les répercussions positives et le rayonnement que génèrent cette épreuve, qui attire de nombreux Américains.

 

Le président-directeur général de Tourisme Montréal, Charles Lapointe, juge pour sa part que cette course, qui ne revêt pas la même dimension que la Formule 1, s'impose néanmoins lorsqu'il est question de la réputation internationale de Montréal en matière de sport automobile.

 

La Ville de Montréal se réjouit quant à elle des retombées économiques, mais aussi de la possibilité d'utiliser le circuit Gilles-Villeneuve pour autre chose que la F1.

 

L'Agence de développement économique du Canada et le ministère du Tourisme du Québec versent chacun 300 000 $, tandis que la Ville de Montréal et l'organisme Tourisme Montréal allouent 100 000 $ chacun.

 

http://auto.lapresse.ca/course-automobile/nascar/201207/11/01-4542751-aide-de-800-000-pour-le-nascar-a-montreal.php

[WestAust]

NASCAR’s roar won’t return to Montreal in 2013

 

MONTREAL - After a six-year fender-bending, sheet-metal-crunching, crowd-pleasing run on Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, the checkered flag has dropped on NASCAR racing in Montreal.

 

And not because NASCAR wanted to leave.

 

The stock-car sanctioning body told The Gazette Friday that despite its strong desire to return to the historic island racetrack, the NASCAR Nationwide Series NAPA 200 will not return to Montreal in 2013.

 

Octane Management head François Dumontier, whose Montreal-based company promotes the NASCAR event and Formula One’s Canadian Grand Prix, confirmed NASCAR’s departure a few hours later during an afternoon news conference at the Île Notre-Dame facility.

 

There was published speculation on Friday that the German-based DTM series, featuring heavily modified Audis, BMWs and Mercedes, might be coming to Montreal. If it does, DTM would replace NASCAR to join Formula One as the second summertime race on the Villeneuve circuit, two motorsport weekends allowed annually on the civic-owned Jean Drapeau Park layout.

 

Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR’s senior vice-president of racing operations, said in an interview that the door is never closed to his sport’s return to Montreal.

 

But consider the odds of NASCAR’s comeback to this city about as good as the repatriation of baseball’s Expos, which moved to Washington, D.C., eight years ago.

 

“I can tell you it’s a bit of a surprise to us,” O’Donnell said of NASCAR’s exit from Montreal, speaking from his office in Daytona Beach, Calif. “We certainly feel like we’ve had a great run in Montreal and certainly anticipated being back next year, if not many years beyond that. That was our intention.”

 

In the end, it seems that Dumontier made NASCAR an offer the governing body couldn’t accept.

 

O’Donnell said that Dumontier suggested he couldn’t make a financial go of a race in Montreal unless his Nationwide Series event was twinned with an elite-series Sprint Cup race, or was switched to a Cup race.

 

Furthermore, O’Donnell said, Dumontier told NASCAR he wanted a Sunday event, not a Saturday on which Nationwide Series normally runs.

 

“We had a sanctioning call (for a 2013 date) about a month prior to this summer’s event,” O’Donnell said. “Everything was great.”

 

By that time, after lengthy efforts, Dumontier had been able to secure $800,000 in funding support for the race from the governments of Canada, Quebec and Montreal, as well as Tourisme Montréal.

 

“That was tremendous,” O’Donnell said. “We’d planned to do a big promotional event before the race with our drivers to embrace the governments for their support. But that was cancelled last minute by the promoter. That was a surprise but again, we didn’t think too much of it and went into the event feeling good.”

 

By then, Dumontier was speaking publicly about needing a Sprint Cup event to make his ends meet.

 

“We never discussed that during our sanctioning call,” O’Donnell said. “But we got through the race weekend, then had a call the following week.”

 

It was then, two days after the sixth annual NAPA 200, O’Donnell said, that Dumontier told him he was struggling with organizing the NASCAR race.

 

“He told us: ‘I need to think about it, it didn’t really work financially for me this year. I’m going to need some help from you guys to pull this off,’ ” O’Donnell said. “Up until then everything was going well. We’d fully intended and wanted to be back in 2013 and well beyond, but then François asked for the a Sunday date at a time that made no sense to us to promote a race or get it on TV.”

 

NASCAR told Dumontier it couldn’t meet his demands and about a week ago, nearing the release of its 2013 Nationwide Series schedule, got an email from its Montreal promoter.

 

“It said: ‘Unfortunately, I don’t think I’m going to want to be in the sanctioning business with you for next year,’ ” O’Donnell said. “So we agreed to part ways.”

 

NASCAR, which with much fanfare replaced the Champ Car World Series on Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in 2007, is now gone, possibly replaced by DTM touring cars.

 

Even with the 2013 Nationwide Series schedule within weeks or less of official release, Canada might yet welcome a race. Look no further than Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, formerly Mosport Park, in Bowmanville, Ont., north of Toronto as a likely site.

 

Track co-owner and occasional NASCAR road-course racer Ron Fellows, the hugely popular veteran who won Montreal’s NAPA 200 in 2008, was coy when asked Friday noon about the possibility, preferring to wait until later in the day to comment.

 

Said O’Donnell: “Canadian fans are huge supporters of NASCAR and it’s very important for us from a national-series perspective to be there. So we’ll certainly explore all avenues to do that. Who knows what the future brings? But it’s unfortunate it didn’t work out in Montreal.”

 

Fellows did express disappointment as a race driver and student of his sport that the Montreal date is off the calendar. Fellows often wore a Gilles Villeneuve T-shirt under his firesuit here, a tribute to the late Ferrari F1 legend he idolized and for whom the track is named.

 

Loyal NASCAR fans who flocked to this city’s race will be devastated by the departure. Nationwide Series drivers and teams will be no less unhappy; they loved coming to Montreal, enamoured by the city’s cosmopolitan flavour and amazed by fans who endured torrential rains without leaving the grandstands, hanging in for wheel-banging action that never failed to materialize, six different drivers winning the six races.

 

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/iPad+Sports/3802701/story.html#ixzz28SKmsLST

Modifié 5 octobre 2012 par WestAust

[mtlurb]

The NASCAR Cup in Montreal in 2024?

lookcharms20 janvier 2023

The leaders of the NASCAR Cup are currently hard at work developing a new “unprecedented” calendar for the 2024 season, which would see the addition of new stops, including Montreal. 

• Read also: A record 14 races in the NASCAR Pinty’s Series in 2023, but only 3 in Quebec

• Read also: Sports travel craze is on the rise

According to several sources, fed by social networks and certain specialized sites, the queen category of the American stock car plans to exploit new markets while increasing from 36 to 40 the number of races organized next year.

Over the past few months, NASCAR President Steve Phelps has made no secret of his intentions to revamp a schedule that would include more events contested on road courses.

However, the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve would, it seems, be a favorite target for NASCAR. The City of Montreal allows the use of the Île-Notre-Dame complex for a second racing weekend of the year.

Especially since the new facilities, inaugurated at the Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix in 2019, would be attractive to attract the NASCAR circus and its big stars, including Chase Elliott, Kyle Larson, Kyle Busch and others.

The date of August 16 brought forward

The Xfinity Series, NASCAR’s second division, moved to Montreal from 2007 to 2012, but the adventure was abandoned due to rather… mixed enthusiasm.

However, the situation would not be the same with the probable arrival of the NASCAR Cup cars.

Quebec has a good pool of stock car enthusiasts, and the event would also attract an American public living in the neighboring states of La Belle Province.

When it comes to the NASCAR Cup and the Xfinity Series, it’s like comparing the National Hockey League and the American League.

Last August, The newspaper had already raised the possibility of holding a NASCAR Cup race in the « near » future.

A draft schedule, recently posted on beyondtheflag.com [mais que NASCAR n’a pas voulu commenter] mentions in particular a stage of the NASCAR Cup which would take place on August 16, 2024 at Circuit Villeneuve and another in the streets of Brooklyn, in the State of New York, on July 21.

In Mexico too

This schedule also reveals a likely foray into a third North American country, Mexico, which would host the NASCAR Cup at the El Dorado track, a short oval track located in the Chihuahua City area. The advanced date is March 17, 2024.

Moreover, we note, still according to rumors, that NASCAR plans to present its first race of the 2024 regular calendar on the Las Vegas circuit on February 10, the day before the Super Bowl, the high mass of American football which will take place also in the gambling capital.

If so, the legendary Daytona complex would not be the inaugural round of the Championship for the first time since 1981.

https://lookcharms.com/the-nascar-cup-in-montreal-in-2024/

[mtlurb]

Deux dirigeants de NASCAR visitent Montréal

francaisenouvelles

TROIS-RIVIÈRES | Pour donner suite à la rumeur probable d’une course de Coupe NASCAR au Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve à l’été 2014, tel que rapporté par le Journal dans son édition de jeudinous avons appris de sources sûres que deux dirigeants de NASCAR ont effectué une visite à Montréal au cours des derniers jours. 

C’est certainement un autre élément qui confirme la volonté des autorités américaines de stock car de tout mettre en œuvre pour tenir une étape de cette prestigieuse série en sol montréalais. 

Un site américain crédible et quelques journalistes influents n’ont pas tardé à soutenir nos écrits. La direction de NASCAR ne pouvait pas être plus claire dans ses intentions d’organiser davantage de courses sur le circuit routier et de présenter certains événements en dehors des États-Unis. 

Partenaires recherchés

En plus de Montréal, dont la date retenue serait le 16 août 2014, une incursion au Mexique est aussi au programme. 

La course aurait lieu sur la piste ovale El Dorado dans la région de Chihuahua le 17 mars 2024. 

Cependant, de nombreux obstacles restent à franchir pour crier victoire, dont l’indispensable apport des partenaires financiers. 

Pour rappel, la Ville de Montréal s’engage à libérer le Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve pour la présentation d’une autre fin de semaine de courses après le Grand Prix du Canada tenu annuellement à la mi-juin. 

Succès mitigé…

Vous avez été nombreux à réagir à cette histoire, qui a évidemment alimenté les forums de discussion ces derniers jours. 

Quand on écrivait que la série Xfinity avait connu un succès mitigé à Montréal (de 2007 à 2012), plusieurs lecteurs indiquaient, non sans raison, que les gradins étaient combles à l’époque. 

Mais, il faut aussi rappeler que le nombre de ces tribunes installées au Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve était beaucoup plus faible qu’au Grand Prix de Formule 1 du Canada. 

Pour rentabiliser l’opération, le promoteur de l’époque aurait aimé ajouter plus de gradins sur le site, mais en a été empêché par un engouement plus limité des amateurs. 

Tentatives infructueuses

De plus, si l’arrivée de la deuxième division majeure de NASCAR avait été un succès à Montréal, la course aurait été maintenue au calendrier encore aujourd’hui. 

L’organisateur voulait prouver à NASCAR, en attirant la Xfinity Series (appelée Nationwide à l’époque), que Montréal méritait, quelques années plus tard, sa place au calendrier de la NASCAR Cup. Mais ses tentatives sont vaines et l’aventure est abandonnée. 

Force est de constater que la vision du NASCAR a changé ces dernières semaines et les amateurs de stock car peuvent se permettre de rêver. 

Ce serait également une bonne nouvelle pour les pilotes NASCAR Pinty’s Series, pour qui une manche du championnat serait logiquement inscrite au programme du week-end.

 

https://nouvelles-dujour.com/deux-dirigeants-de-nascar-visitent-montreal/