The estimated crowd was more than 70,000, the largest ever to see a Nationwide Series race at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. The weather in Montreal was nothing short of magnifique. The finish -- with Max Papis and eventual winner Boris Said trading the lead during the final two laps, and local hero Jacques Villeneuve right behind -- ranks right up there with Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s Daytona 500 charge at Jamie McMurray among the most thrilling in any NASCAR national-series event this season.

Yes, it took a while to get there, with seven cautions and a 13-minute red flag slowing the proceedings on a long road course where a single lap under yellow can feel like a commute to Ottawa and back. But the enduring images of last week's Montreal event will be the same as they've been in the previous three years of the race -- another tremendous crowd, another tremendous finish, and another tremendous day for NASCAR in Canada. This is no novelty, not anymore. From the participation of so many Canadian drivers to the passion of so many Canadian race fans, there's just something about this race that works.

Local heroes like [Jacques] Villeneuve or Andrew Ranger would be in lower-flight cars, if they could score rides for the event at all.

Which makes you wonder why there seems such a rush to mess with it. Now that it's quite evident the Montreal Nationwide event is a hit, there are no shortage of fans or media members ready to find a place on the Cup Series schedule for Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. And one day, that may very well happen. No question, Canada has proven itself as a NASCAR nation, both in the overwhelmingly positive response to the Montreal race and how fans from north of the border routinely travel to Cup events in the United States. As mentioned in this very space last week, Canada continues to bolster the argument that somewhere, at some time, it deserves a place in the sport's premier series.

But is that place Montreal? Let's face it, the fact that Sunday's event was a Nationwide race and not a Cup stop didn't seem to deter a record crowd from turning out. Yes, the big show would bring out Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Earnhardt, and all the other stars who rarely if ever moonlight on the Nationwide tour. But it would almost certainly come with a trade-off, in the form of fewer Canadian drivers in the field. As with every Cup road course event, the regulars are so good now there's no need to turn their vehicles over to specialists. That means local heroes like Villeneuve or Andrew Ranger would be in lower-flight cars, if they could score rides for the event at all.

Don't underestimate how important the presence of Canadian drivers is to the race in Montreal, where every year the field is dotted with competitors who give the event a provincial flair. Villeneuve, a native of a town near Montreal whose late father is the track's namesake, energizes the event by his very presence, and surely thrilled Canadian fans Sunday by being a threat to win. Had that been a Cup race, would Villeneuve have been in a car good enough to crack the top 10? Ranger's third-place run last year impressed even winner Carl Edwards. Would he have been in a car capable of such a thing had the race been a Cup event?

Likely, no. You also likely wouldn't have seen three Canadians finish in the top 11, as they did this year, or three in the top seven as happened in 2009. No question, Canadian race fans want to see Kyle Busch and Tony Stewart tangle. But from the beginning, the presence of so many Canadian drivers -- good Canadian drivers in equipment capable of contending -- has helped bring an energy and an enthusiasm to the Montreal event that not even a Cup race may be able to match. As it is, Montreal seems the perfect combination of people and place. That it's a Nationwide event, technically a step below NASCAR's premier series, hardly seems to matter.

Now, that's not to say NASCAR doesn't need to look long and hard at Canada as a future site for potential schedule realignment, but those are murky waters. International Speedway Corp. owns the company that promotes races at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, which is in a municipal park and owned by the city of Montreal. ISC currently has an agreement with the city to promote motorsports events at the track through 2012, and with Montreal's approval could technically include Circuit Gilles Villeneuve as part of a Cup schedule shakeup at some point. But right now, there are no indications that such a move is even being considered. ISC and NASCAR seem perfectly happy with Montreal as host to a standalone Nationwide event, and given the success of the race it's easy to see why.

So Canada's hopes for a potential Cup race will have to wait, perhaps until that proposed 1-mile oval designed partly by Gordon rises out of the ground near Fort Erie, Ont., a town across the border from Buffalo. But that facility comes with no guarantees -- even if it gets built, the track's ownership consortium will exist outside of the ISC/Speedway Motorsports Inc. power structure, and could very well face the same frustrations former Kentucky Speedway owner Jerry Carroll suffered in trying to bring a Cup event to the Bluegrass State. That didn't happen until he sold to SMI chairman Bruton Smith, who shifted a long-awaited date from one of his other tracks.

So anyone holding their breath in anticipation of a Canadian Cup date may turn blue in the face long before it becomes reality. Does Canada deserve it? Unquestionably, given the level of support shown by Canadian fans in Montreal, Michigan, Watkins Glen, and elsewhere. A return of NASCAR's premier series to Canada would surely be a proud moment, especially for those who understand the motorsports heritage that exists in Ontario and Quebec. But the one big oval capable of hosting such a thing currently exists only on an architect's desk. Montreal is a Nationwide race -- and a Nationwide race only -- now and for the foreseeable future.

And that's not a bad thing. Montreal is a race that has the NASCAR spotlight unto itself, an event with a cosmopolitan backdrop that attracts an eclectic mixture of Canadian drivers, road-course specialists, and moonlighting Cup regulars. With singing and flag-waving and strong crowds, it's as jubilant as a NASCAR event gets, regardless of the series, and it deserves to be enjoyed for what it is rather than what it is not. So it's not a Cup event. In those final laps Sunday, when Said and Papis and Villeneuve took your breath away, did anyone really seem to mind?

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.