Mexican NASCAR

Oy oy.

 

Yesterday was the NASCAR Busch series race held each year in Mexico City.  It is a road course event and I've really grown to love it.  It was broadcast in Spanish on ESPN and in English on ESPN2.  I watched ESPN.  It was extremely cool to see the difference in coverage, even though I could barely understand a word. 

 

I like that NASCAR has slowly become a little more international.  Not only do they now have Toyota in the line-up, but they've also got some foreign drivers.  There were 7 drivers from Mexico in the race.  The top 10 had a Colombian, 2 Mexicans and an Aussi.  The race was finally won by Juan Pablo Montoya.  It was a great race!

 

One of the things I enjoyed was the pronunciation of some of the names by the Mexican announcers.  My personal favorite was "J. J. Yeley", which in Spanish comes out, "Yay Yay Yeley". 

 

NASCAR has the rap of being an American sport that deosn't really interest the rest of the world.  It was very cool to see 72,000 Mexicans show up to enjoy some racing.  NASCAR and the Mexican hosts for this race seemed to put on a great show.  With luck, it will bring some new fans to racing as well as some tollerance and enlightenment to American race fans. 

 

I can' wait for next year's race.  Maybe we'll even get a cup race down there. 

 

Pete