Upstart Perez embarking on rigorous push for 2010

The last three months of the 2009 NASCAR season might seem daunting for 23-year-old aspiring stock-car racer Antonio Perez, the reigning Corona Series champion:

• Defend a NASCAR touring division championship;
• Make his ARCA debut;
• Build the foundation for a full-time Nationwide Series program in 2010.

Perez

It starts this weekend at Watkins Glen International, where Perez made his third Nationwide Series start last year after two series starts at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City. In 2008 at The Glen, an accident ended his day after only 39 laps and he finished 37th.

One week after Perez won at Zacatecas, his first victory this season in NASCAR Mexico's Corona Series, he's charged up to again be at Watkins Glen.

The bad news is 48 cars are entered for the 43-car field for the Nationwide Series race on Saturday. The good news is Perez is the WGI record-holder in the Camping World East Series, which uses similar cars on bias ply tires rather than radials.

No matter, according to crew chief Mark Tutor, who says Perez is just the driver for the aggressive schedule that's been laid out for him by TW Motorsports owners Troy Williams and Sean Watts.

"I think Antonio's ready to do it, because he's done a couple of these races and he's familiar with the procedures now, which are different from the typical short-track deal," Tutor said. "He's adaptable, is the biggest thing. He came up here for the first time last year and took to it really quickly. He's got a pretty diverse background, with a lot of open-wheel stuff.

"He just gets the whole package. He speaks very good English -- we don't ever have a problem communicating. I understand him, even though he uses some different words. But you've got to understand, I've worked with Darrell Waltrip, so I've heard the most different words you could ever imagine. [Perez] has got a great sense of humor, he knows when it's appropriate to use it and he doesn't let small situations get over-blown."

Last year, Perez won the Corona Series title in the last event of the 14-race season and originally was set to concentrate on the 2009 Camping World East Series. But when his primary Mexican backers -- Telmex, Red Bull and the Chivas soccer team -- wanted him to defend his Corona Series title, that's where he went. (TW has raced the full Camping World Series with countryman Jesus Hernandez, a former NASCAR diversity program driver.)

"I think the time's right to do it," Tutor said of Perez's move. "What we've been doing in the Camping World East, we've been on an extremely tight budget but we've been performing well there with Jesus and he's right there every week."

As usual, raising the finances to go racing has been critical, and Miami businessman Aurelio Leyva, whose Continental Electric is "one of those companies you've never heard of, but you see stuff they make every day," Tutor said, stepped up to make The Glen race possible.

Telmex and Chivas have lent the team an identity, but Williams, Watts and their team are still seeking the financing to execute their planned, but still flexible schedule, and Tutor said Leyva is on board for some of that.

Perez's schedule includes the Nationwide Series races at Montreal and Phoenix. The team also hopes to do an ARCA Series event at either Chicago Speedway or Kansas, with either of those 1.5-mile speedways potentially qualifying Perez to race Nationwide events at Charlotte, Kansas, Fontana or Homestead.

Tutor hopes all that would make Perez eligible for a Speedweeks 2010 debut at Daytona, saying "it's pretty ambitious and it's all contingent on money and the plans getting finalized, and there are a lot of things in the works."

NASCAR consultant Jose Sabates is working with representatives from Wal-Mart and Target to place Telmex and Chivas Racing material in those stores, which he considers a critical element to exposing another aspect of NASCAR racing to not only Latin American race fans, but soccer fans and mainstream race fans as well.

"You look at all the Cup regulars that are here, and they're good road racers; and all the road race ringers," Tutor said of the competition at Watkins Glen. "I think this Nationwide race will be as tough, if not tougher, than the Cup race.

"I've been here with [Tony] Stewart and with Robby Gordon and some of those guys are here [in the Nationwide garage]. It's tough, but 15-10 is our goal, top 15 in qualifying and top 10 in the race."