All News Peter Gibbons

CASCAR to NASCAR? UPDATE:

June 2, 2004 at 12:00 AM
  • Rumours are rampant that the CASCAR Super Series — Canada’s top stock car racing sanctioning body — is in negotiations with NASCAR to sell its events, including races at the Toronto and Vancouver Molson Indys. Reports of the sale were being spread this past weekend in Charlotte, N.C., home of NASCAR’s Coca-Cola 600 [at Lowe’s Motor Speedway]. If the sale were to be completed, it is expected that NASCAR would rename the series NASCAR North and lump it in with its two other regional racing series — Busch North and Grand National West. CASCAR spokesman Richard Coughlin, reached at Delaware Speedway where the series held its first race of the season this past weekend, said there have been talks but denied a sale is imminent. Veteran driver Peter Gibbons, who coincidentally has his race shop in the Charlotte area, won the race at Delaware in his #1 Canadian Tire Chevrolet.(Toronto Sun)(6-2-2004)
    UPDATE: NASCAR has been in discussions to buy Canada’s top stock-car racing series, CASCAR owner and founder Tony Novotny of London confirmed yesterday. “We have had discussions with NASCAR as recently as February of this year,” Novotny said. “However, we don’t have any kind of a deal on the table right now that says they are going to buy us at this point.” Novotny said that the most recent talks have centered on whether NASCAR is able to make a deal that works for him and the 30 or so teams who regularly run the CASCAR Super Series, including the Toronto and Vancouver Molson Indys. This isn’t the first time that NASCAR has focused it’s attention on the Canadian market in general and CASCAR specifically. “We have had discussions with NASCAR as far back as five years ago,” Novotny said. “I sat down with then NASCAR chairman Bill France Jr.” A key impetus to getting NASCAR’s attention has been the huge success the past two seasons of having Nextel Cup drivers race in the annual Canada Day Shootout at Cayuga.(London Free Press)(6-7-2004)