Father Benito Velasco throws holy water at the photographers after blessing the Hermanos Rodriguez road course on Thursday. Credit: AP

Mexico's first NASCAR race creates challenges

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Ron Hornaday Jr. took a first glance at the winding course for Sunday's NASCAR road course and acted a bit confused.

"Which way does it go?" asked the veteran Busch series driver.

It was a joke with a stinger: The 200-mile Telcel-Motorola race creates unusual challenges for drivers, teams and organizers.

Never before has the Busch Series competed in Mexico -- a country where open-wheel racing has been king. Never before has NASCAR raced in such thin atmosphere, where the 7,400-foot altitude will give the cars a little less downforce, robbing them of grip and horsepower.

Akins Motorsports crewmen unload Tyler Walker's Dodge on Thursday. Credit: David Fahleson /UPS

Only a handful of the drivers have ever seen the 2.520-mile NASCAR version of the Hermanos Rodriguez road course, a track built for open-wheel racers and slightly modified to save the brakes of the less-agile NASCAR vehicles.

"Whoever shows up tomorrow with a clear mind and just can study the race track and do their homework the fastest, that is going to be the whole thing right there," said Hornaday, driving the No. 33 Chevrolet for Kevin Harvick Inc.

The 10 Mexican drivers entered know the course best, but the most famous of them -- Adrian Fernandez and Michel Jourdain Jr. _ have the least experience in stock cars.

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Fernandez said the powerful but heavy stock cars take almost twice as long to brake as the cars he runs in the IRL and are slower in the turns.

"Everything is different, so I have to adapt to everything," said Fernandez, who has a one-race contract to drive the No. 5 car for Hendrick Motorsports.

On the other hand, Fernandez and Jourdain have years of charging around the track that other drivers have seen only from the passenger seat of a reconnaissance ride.

Mara Reyes, the only Mexican woman entered in the race, is a veteran of Mexico's Corona Challenge series, but stockers there have about half the horsepower of the Busch cars.

Friday was to be the first time she would sit in her newly built Busch entry for Jay Robinson Racing.

"I'm worried about what is going to happen tomorrow," she said. "The car is coming in new and we still have to go over all the details."

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For NASCAR, the race is a lunge toward the growing Hispanic market in the United States as well as Mexican race fans.

"This is a very long-term strategic decision that NASCAR feels will help grow the sport not only in Mexico but also in the United States," said Robbie Weiss, NASCAR's managing director for international affairs.

He suggested there could be a bridge between fans of a growing stock car series in Mexico and their relatives following the Nextel Cup and Busch series in the United States.

Mexican promotion company Ocesa and local sponsors are gambling that Mexicans will show the same enthusiasm for stock cars that they have for the Champ Car series, which drew more than 400,000 to its three-day race weekend here in 2003.

Ocesa's race event director, Federico Alaman, said 45,000 tickets already had been sold by Thursday and predicted that 80,000 will watch the race.

"We really think that there is a lot of fan base out there," he said," noting that more than 20 million people live in the greater Mexico City area. "I think this is going to be like the starting of a totally new racing world in Mexico."