Leffler, Balash make peace, sell NASCAR in Montreal (cont'd)

While Leffler and Balash are busy with radio, race promoter Francois Dumontier and Normand Prieur, who directs the PR efforts for the race, are making the rounds of French-speaking television. Though the story of the skiing accident at nearby Mont Tremblant that claimed the life of actress Natasha Richardson dominates the news, Dumontier does five minutes on Salut Bonjour, Quebec's equivalent to the Today Show, before heading to French-language news network LCN for another interview.

With the departure of Formula One racing from North America in 2009, the Nationwide weekend, which also includes races in the Grand-Am and NASCAR Canadian Tire Series, is the major event of the year for Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, which ISC will operate for the next three years under an agreement with city-owned Parc Jean-Drapeau, the island park in the St. Lawrence River where the track is located.

Jason Leffler and Joe Balash

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Since its debut in 2007, the Montreal event has run on Friday and Saturday opposite the Cup Series' Pocono race weekend. This year, qualifying and the race will take place on Saturday and Sunday during an off week for the Cup series. That's more fodder for the advance team.

"We like to work on the stand-alone races, because we have a singular message that we send," Balash says before a lunch meeting with print media. "This is a very important market to us, so we're spending some time up here. We did the same thing in advance of some of our races in Mexico City [no longer on the schedule]. And when we go to new venues like Iowa [which debuts this year], we'll spend some time in Iowa and do the same thing."

Leffler is sporting his typical look, with a haircut that's a cross between a Mohawk and the 'do of actor Martin Short's Ed Grimley character. Leffler's hairstyle serves a purpose; the inevitable questions about his locks serve as a perfect entree for a sponsor plug for Great Clips.

In his interviews, Leffler is glib and upbeat, a manner he has acquired without any formal media training.

"It's like laps around the racetrack," he says. "It's just experience. I'm a pretty shy person, actually, but I enjoy speaking in front of the public and talking about the product that we sell, whether it's the Nationwide Series or NASCAR or Great Clips or Toyota. I'm proud to be associated with those things, and I'm proud to promote them."

In the Lennon Suite, Leffler and Balash resist suggestions that they pose for photos on the bed a la John and Yoko. Instead, they flash the peace sign from a settee at the foot of the bed.

After the side trip to the suite come more radio interviews. Then it's back to the airport for the return trip to Charlotte and Daytona. All told, the advance team, which arrived in time for dinner with Dumontier and Prieur the night before, has spent 22 hours in Montreal.

By the time NASCAR's Hawker corporate jet takes off at 4 p.m., the photo from the Lennon Suite is up on nascarmedia.com. Judd receives a text from a reporter who has just seen it, suggesting that, after the cameras stopped shooting, Leffler's peace sign evolved into a one-fingered salute.

Judd reads the text to the advance team during the two-hour flight back to Charlotte.

No one laughs harder than Leffler and Balash.