Villeneuve meets approval for NASCAR's COT test

NASCAR neophyte Jacques Villeneuve said he's still enthralled with testing following a 243-mile day Wednesday at Kentucky Speedway. Thursday he received NASCAR's approval to do the manufacturers' Car of Tomorrow test next week at Talladega Superspeedway.

The steps are the latest in the former Indy car and Formula One world champion's journey toward his NASCAR debut, planned for the Craftsman Truck Series' Smith Las Vegas 350 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sept. 22.

"Oh yeah -- it's the most interesting testing I've done in a while because I'm learning a lot," Villeneuve said on his drive to the airport. "It's a whole new ballgame and I have to learn a lot, so testing is fun.

'Impressive' debut

When Jacques Villeneuve tested a truck for Bill Davis Racing, Slugger Labbe was left with a positive impression.

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"Any time something new happens it's great, so getting in those [stock] cars and driving on the ovals has been a great experience."

Villeneuve will next test a Car of Tomorrow with Bill Davis Racing driver Dave Blaney next Monday and Tuesday at Talladega.

Team owner Bill Davis has talked of having Villeneuve do the ARCA RE/MAX Series event at Talladega next month. An ARCA test is scheduled at Talladega's 2.66-mile oval on Sept. 24-25.

Villeneuve got his first taste of NASCAR from the driver's seat in a No. 27 BDR truck over two days at Chicagoland Speedway last week. Wednesday, according to crew chief Slugger Labbe, he did 162 additional laps on Kentucky's 1.5-mile layout in a Toyota Car of Tomorrow.

Last week Labbe had predicted the COT's performance would be more of what the former open-wheel standout had expected in NASCAR, and Villeneuve confirmed it.

"I think he was right, [the COT] was very different from the truck," Villeneuve said. "It took a little bit to adjust, but once we got the car dialed in, it was very nice to drive.

"You just need to work your way around it. Once you have the balance, any car becomes fun to drive -- but it seemed to be more difficult to get it dialed in, so you need to do more work and it's more driver-dependent. So you need to slow down more and brake a little more to get down into the corner, so there's more driving involved, but I think it's good."

Labbe, who spoke of his latest rookie in glowing terms last week, had more of the same to say driving away from Kentucky.

"He did a good job," Labbe said. "It would have been easy to get frustrated at the start, but he stayed with it and kept working on it and made good changes and at the end of the test it was a fun car to drive, so that was good. I'm glad we came.

"We've run right at 600 miles of testing with him and it's been very enjoyable, so that's real promising."

Villeneuve agreed.

"The stuff that we worked on [Thursday] made sense, so I'm happy about that," Villeneuve said. "Most of it did, anyway. I'm still finding my way a little bit, but most of the things we changed on the car reacted in a logical way." (Continued)