NASCAR doesn’t need Cup in Montreal
Bob Pockrass
Bob Pockrass began covering NASCAR in 1992, primarily covering short-track racing and events. He has worked for Street & Smith's Motorsports Group since 2003.
You’re going to hear a lot of stuff over the next few days about whether the Sprint Cup Series should go to Montreal. You’ll hear that it’s a great city and a great market and that it would be great to have a Cup race there.
But NASCAR ought to be careful before it decides to bring Cup to Montreal.
It’s a great event for the Nationwide Series, so why mess with that? Can’t the Nationwide Series be in the spotlight once in a while? Running Nationwide there allows Canadian drivers to get into good cars, which many wouldn’t be able to do if Sprint Cup went there because the driver points are so important to many more teams in Cup than Nationwide.
NASCAR also doesn’t really need another road course on the Cup schedule. Racing twice on road courses is enough of a challenge for many of these drivers, and another one doesn’t need to be added.
Yes, it’s a cool city and moving a Cup race there could help grow the sport more into Canada (of course, at the risk of alienating fans from whatever city loses a race). But before taking in all the hype on Montreal and Cup, there are questions that need to be asked other than just is it worth the headache for the teams to cross the border.
