Jacques Villeneuve - Unicef Tundra
Post Race Report
Race: Easy Care Vehicle Service Contracts 200
Track: Motor Speedway
Date: Saturday, Oct. 27, 2007
Started: 17th
Finished: 14th
Laps Completed: 130
Total Laps: 130
Having been taken out of his last two NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series races by other drivers, Jacques Villeneuve completed the full 130-lap distance at Atlanta Motor Speedway Saturday, where he finished 14th in the EasyCare Vehicle Service Contracts 200. The race was won by NASCAR Nextel Cup Series front-runner Kyle Busch. Villeneuve again finished on the lead lap after having broken into the top 10. Despite a strong finish – his best NASCAR finish to date – Villeneuve was a bit frustrated not to claim a higher finishing position.
Villeneuve qualified his UNICEF Toyota Tundra in the 17th position, just two places behind NASCAR veteran Mark Martin. Villeneuve's Bill Davis Racing teammates Mike Skinner and Johnny Benson qualified second and eighth, respectively, for Saturday afternoon's race, which was run under hot, sunny conditions.
Villeneuve duked it out for track position throughout the race and was comfortable running at speed in the pack. Some great work by his pit crew helped Villeneuve climb as high as ninth at one point, and he seemed poised for a top-10 finish. Such a finish would be well-deserved, after Villeneuve was eliminated from competition last week at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway despite a truck capable of a top-10 finish. The 36-year-old Canadian, who won the Formula One drivers' world championship exactly 10 years ago, struggled to find anything like the same pace that he'd enjoyed in qualifying. His problem was that his truck was difficult to control on the higher banks. On two of the restarts, he was forced to the high side of the 1.5-mile racing surface, which lost him about four positions each time.
"Well, I have to be quite happy," Villeneuve commented after the race. "My primary objective was to finish this race...to add track time, which I did. After the problems in Talladega and Martinsville, it was good to make it to the checker. I also finished on the lead lap again, which is a big positive with so many variables in these long races, and I thank my team for all their help in that process, but I am disappointed not to finish higher. The truck didn't feel as good as it had in qualifying, and it didn't seem to matter what we did to change it the front of the truck kept running out towards the wall when tried to run high. That caused me a few problems, but it's what we had, and we did our best with it. I'm still learning this entire package, and sometimes, I'm not yet as confident as I want to be in deciding which changes we need to make. It will get better with time, and I will continue to focus on what I can be doing better."
"All in all, 'JV' did a phenomenal job," said Richard "Slugger" Labbe, who served as Villeneuve's spotter for this race. "He was very strong. If it wasn't for losing those places on the five turns after the restarts, he'd have been right up there at the end."
Jacques Villeneuve's NASCAR campaign now moves to Texas Motor Speedway, a 1.5 mile quadoval track, similar in many respects to the Atlanta circuit, where he will contest the Silverado 350k the evening of Friday, Nov. 2.
From: Amanda Smith Mathis // Bill Davis Racing
