Sabates OK with NASCAR's dropping of Mexico City
BRISTOL, Tenn. – Felix Sabates helped bring NASCAR to Mexico City, so when NASCAR announced its 2009 Nationwide Series schedule and Mexico City wasn’t on it, Sabates could have been disappointed.
But he wasn’t.
“They accomplished what they wanted,” said Sabates, who owns a piece of Chip Ganassi Racing. “They wanted to get the NASCAR Mexico series going. They’re very successful now.
“When we first put the deal together, it wasn’t going to be forever. It was going to be three or four years.”
From 2005-2008, NASCAR held a points event at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez road course. In that time, NASCAR’s series in Mexico has sparked the building of many new tracks with a 21-race schedule.
“They’ve got some pretty good Mexican drivers coming out of there," Sabates said. "So they pretty much accomplished what they wanted to.”
Sabates, who was born in Cuba, does have an idea for how NASCAR can market to Hispanics.
“We need [Juan Pablo] Montoya to win a race,” Sabates said about his Cup driver, who has not yet won this year.
