Monday's Craftsman Truck Series test session at Chicagoland Speedway was an eye-opener -- for both the veteran stock-car crew chief Slugger Labbe and the multiple open-wheel champion Jacques Villeneuve, who was in a NASCAR race vehicle for the first time.

Villeneuve had to be told the most infinitesimal details about what to do and where to go in his No. 27 Bill Davis Racing Toyota truck -- but after a full day and 135 laps of the fast, 1.5-mile speedway in Joliet, Ill., Labbe couldn't wait for their next time on track.

Former F1 champion Jacques Villeneuve will soon embark on a path that could place him in his own Cup ride for Bill Davis before this season is complete.

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"We ran 135 laps [Monday] and I never once saw him get sideways," Labbe said. "He run competitive and it was really a good test for a guy coming out of the box and never being in a NASCAR-type car. He did a great job.

"Right now, JV is so excited he'd run 100 laps if we didn't tell him to come in and pit, so we pretty much just gotta point him in the right direction -- but he's doing a great job."

Labbe said there were about 10 trucks at the test, which was staged by General Motors for its Chevrolet Silverado teams. Labbe said that, oddly enough, Toyota's Tundras were allowed to attend and that they outnumbered GM's teams.

Villeneuve's truck was fielded by BDR's No. 22 team. Labbe, whose assignment currently is to develop Villeneuve for a possible full-time Nextel Cup program in 2008, worked with the 22 team's regular crew chief, Doug Wolcott. BDR teammate and points leader Mike Skinner also tested.

Labbe said Villeneuve began the day "three-quarters of a second" off Skinner's pace, but by day's end he was lapping within two-tenths of Skinner.

"We had the truck set up pretty tight [to start the day], as we should have," Labbe said. "As the day went on we kept freeing it up and running faster and faster. He never got it crossed up or out of shape, and I think the shortest run he made was 10 laps.

"We run him hard and we ran the tires into the cords. I think every time we pitted, we put 19 gallons of fuel in, so we went from being full of fuel on new tires to just about out of gas. We're just trying to build a library and a catalogue for JV -- just to energize his brain with all this different technology.

"If we changed a 100-pound rear spring, or a right-front spring, we want him to understand what it does so that when we go to Vegas in a few weeks to qualify, he'll remember what these changes did at Chicagoland."

Labbe, who's been out of work for the past month or so after being the victim of a crew chief numbers game following the mid-July merger of Ginn Racing and Dale Earnhardt Inc., was scheduled to test with Villeneuve at Chicagoland on Tuesday.

"I haven't signed the deal with Bill yet, but me and [BDR competition director] Tommy Baldwin have been friends for a long time and I'm sure Bill and I will get something worked out," Labbe said. "When you're a racer, it don't matter -- you'll get something worked out. I just wanted to come here with these boys and get Jacques accustomed to all the things about testing, running fast and running competitive and making sure the truck stays in one piece.

"The difficult thing was that everyone was on different tires, so all we did was compare JV with Mike Skinner, because they were on the same tire. [Villeneuve] was surprised at how much grip the trucks had, and how well they turned, because he figured they wouldn't turn very well."

Villeneuve is set to test again with BDR in a Toyota Car of Tomorrow next week at Kentucky Speedway.

"I told him the Car of Tomorrow next week will pretty much be everything that he thought," Labbe said. "The trucks have more downforce and a bigger spoiler and you're able to do more on a truck than you are with a Car of Tomorrow, so I'm sure next week at Kentucky it'll open his eyes pretty good.

"But it is what it is. The Car of Tomorrow is our future and we've just got to get him comfortable with it. I've done a lot of things in racing, but having a guy from Formula One on a racetrack for the first time was a pretty neat experience, to see how well and how fast he adapted. It just goes to show you, if there's a good racecar driver out there, it won't take him long to adapt, because it didn't take JV long to figure that out."

Monday was Labbe's first day working with Villeneuve, with whom he hopes to make the Canadian's Truck Series debut at Las Vegas next month, his ARCA RE/MAX Series debut at Talladega Superspeedway in October and possibly his Nextel Cup debut by the Homestead finale in November.

"We have to teach him all the dos and don'ts of NASCAR," Labbe said. "Like pit-road speed -- all the things that people take for granted, and that drivers are supposed to know, but with Jacques being a rookie to NASCAR, he's got to learn all these things."

Villeneuve, who won the CART Indy car championship and the Indianapolis 500 in 1995, before moving to Formula One, where he won the World Championship in 1997, had his aggressive schedule confirmed by owner Davis last weekend at Bristol.

After one day of testing, Labbe said he was thrilled to be along for the ride.

"Flying [to Chicago] there were three things I was concerned about, to be honest with you," Labbe said. "One, was he going to be competitive, and obviously, before too long he was up to speed and he was competitive, so that was a check.

"The second thing was the information that he would relay back to us. Was he just going to say 'I'm loose' and that's it, or how descriptive was he going to be. He was pretty darned impressive. He would start you at the entry of the corner and walk you all the way through it -- then you could go look at the Pi data on the computer and it was almost exactly what he was saying. So it was amazing how really, really smart this guy was.

"And the third thing was, is that most drivers drive straight into the corner [because] they're afraid to arc it out and get a nice run down to the center of the corner. On his second lap, he was taking arcs wider than Jack Sprague and Skinner -- he was pretty aggressive from the get-go and he's got no fear, and that's the thing that's impressive.

"He's not intimidated by nothing and he adapted really well, real quick -- and he understands it. He's probably not going to go to Vegas and sit on the pole and win the race -- but I feel he'll probably do a good job there. We haven't done important things like running in traffic and doing pit stops, but right now, he's pretty impressive."