By Nate Ryan
Richmond Times Dispatch, March 1

Because of new rules that guarantee their cars' entry, Adrian Fernandez and Michel Jourdain will have no worries about making Sunday's first Busch Series race in Mexico City.

But truthfully, they had few concerns about qualifying on their home turf anyway.

"The fans will guarantee whether we're in," Fernandez said, smiling as laughter filled the room of a news conference at Daytona International Speedway last month. "If we're not in, we'll be in trouble, I can tell you that!"

HOLA! Y'ALL The March 6 Telcel Motorola 200 in Mexico City has drawn 48 entries to date, including nine drivers with ties to Mexico along with eight NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series competitors among the field of NASCAR Busch Series regulars. Boris Said, Kevin Harvick, Jamie McMurray, Robby Gordon, Carl Edwards, Rusty Wallace, Joe Nemechek, and Elliott Sadler are the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup drivers entered. In addition to Michel Jourdain Jr. (No. 10 ppc Racing Ford), a native of Mexico City who is running a full NASCAR Busch Series schedule for ppc Racing this year, other Mexican driving stars include: Adrian Fernandez, Rafael Martinez, Carlos Contreras, Mara Reyes, Jorge Goeters, Ruben Novoa, Jose Magana and Jimmy Morales. Of those drivers, Contreras is the only one with NASCAR Busch Series experience – he had two starts in 2003 with his best finish a 17th at Homestead.

Open-wheel veterans Jourdain and Fernandez are among 10 native sons who will provide a rooting interest for a crowd of at least 150,000 that is expected for the historic race. The event is central in NASCAR's thrust toward gaining a foothold in a Latin American fan market largely untapped by stock-car racing.

By putting Mexican stars in its cars, NASCAR is hoping to expand its popularity in the country and with 30 million Mexican-American whose passion for auto racing ranks high with boxing and soccer.

"The fans are rabid," said Chip Ganassi, who has fielded Champ Car and Indy Racing League cars in races south of the border for several years. "They love racing, and they love the automobile. They identify with so many American [makes]."

Felix Sabates, a Cuban native who is a partner with Ganassi in the Dodge that Jamie McMurray will drive in Mexico City, was instrumental in using connections with the Mexican government to help NASCAR schedule the event. Sabates said he jokingly told McMurray "there'll be 300,000 of us there. If one of you gringos touches one of the Mexicans' cars, it will be hard. When you see them coming, pull over!"

"Mexicans love following Mexicans," Sabates said. "So if you have a following in Mexico City, the Mexicans are going to follow NASCAR. You open a whole new market of people to follow NASCAR."

Jourdain is expecting the Busch race to be the year's biggest race in Mexico, which also flocks to Champ Car and Indy Racing League events in six-figure crowds.

The main draw of the Busch event will be Fernandez. The 41-year-old has been a national hero since the early 1990s when he broke into the major leagues of Indy cars in the United States.

"It's been almost 15 years that he's been on the covers of the news all the time," Jourdain said. "It's something that we don't have that often in Mexico. It's been a soccer player and a couple of boxers that have had that.

"Adrian is huge, and I think compared with a lot of big names in sports in the history of Mexico, he's tried to be closer to the people and the media, and he has kept himself in a good position. A lot of these other guys after five years, they go crazy [from the attention]."

"Not yet," Fernandez quipped.

Fernandez's popularity has been compared with Michael Jordan in a country where the variety of sports isn't as vast as in America. His decision to step back from driving and focus on being an owner in the IRL this year because of a lack of sponsorship has drawn waves of protest from his following.

"They're very passionate," Fernandez said. "They're so passionate, they want to consult with me sometimes on what I do."

After a victory in a Champ Car race at Australia in 2000, his sales shot up 40 percent the following weekend at California Speedway, which sits in a market teeming with Latino fans.

Lowe's is sponsoring Fernandez on Sunday, and Senior Vice President of Marketing Bob Gfeller said his company will be tracking sales among multicultural customers in the Southwest. He expects to see a spike in Latino buying from backing a driver "who is known as only 'Adrian'" in his home country.

Lowe's will offer free Fernandez hero cards and will hold a drawing for an autographed helmet at stores in Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Phoenix and El Paso, Texas.

Racing in the Hendrick Motorsports No.5 Chevrolet that carried Kyle Busch to five victories last year, Fernandez wants to do his part to justify all that attention Sunday at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez circuit.

"I'm in a top-class car," Fernandez said. "I know the circuit.

"I expect to win."

ORIGINAL STORY-Richmond Times Dispatch

NASCAR looks south for talent, fans
By Sean Mattson
San Antonio Express News,March 1

Mara Reyes is not a household name.

NASCAR wants to change that.

Next Saturday, Reyes, 27, will seat herself behind the wheel of a 750-horsepower stock car and try to rocket her way into history by becoming the first Mexican woman to qualify for an official NASCAR event. The following day's race, the Telcel Motorola Mexico 200, is a benchmark itself -- the first NASCAR event on Mexican soil.

U.S. sports action in Mexico City doesn't stop there.

While Reyes runs the race of her life at the capital's recently refurbished world-class racetrack, across town Mexican golf star Lorena Ochoa will test home-country advantage at an LPGA Tour event Friday through Sunday.

Ochoa, 23, the world's third-ranked woman golfer, also will bask in the glory for almost single-handedly bringing the LPGA Tour to Mexico for the first time since 1974.

Even five years ago, an LPGA-NASCAR doubleheader in Mexico would have seemed improbable.

These days, it's hardly a coincidence. In response to the growing economic punch of the Hispanic community in the United States, major U.S. sports leagues are looking to Mexico for the stars they believe are needed to court a fan base in the United States' second-largest demographic group.

But in a soccer-mad country still embroiled in dirt poverty, sports such as auto racing, golf and American football are privileges of the elite; the Mexican base for potential stars is tiny compared to the United States.

Mexican racing giants Adrian Fernandez and Michel Jordain will headline the Mexico City NASCAR race, but event organizers hope obscure Mexican drivers like Reyes will be hot on their tailpipes.

"It is not about a bunch of Americans coming down to Mexico and putting on an exhibition race," said Robbie Weiss, NASCAR's international managing director. "The development and launch of a stock car series (in Mexico) was critical to us doing the event."

ORIGINAL STORY-San Antonio Express News

A ride for national pride
By Cammy Clark
Miami Herald,March 1

Most people in Mexico City have never heard of NASCAR, or know so little about the U.S. stock car series that they don't recognize the name Dale Earnhardt Jr.

But after an informal survey of Mexicans on Sunday, it seemed almost everybody knew about their country's most popular race car driver, Adrian Fernandez.

''Sí, Adrian Fernandez,'' said Jorge Ochoa, a high school student in Mexico City who spoke English. ``He is famous. He races cars all over the world. He represents our country very well.''

''The only drivers ever as big as Adrian were the Rodriguez brothers, who raced a long, long time ago,'' said Javier Luiz, a former driver of Formula 3 cars who works for Mercedes-Benz. ``Mexico does not have a lot of racing stars.''

Adrian Fernandez was on the pole in the CART Grand Prix Americas race at Miami in 2003 (Chuck Fadely/Miami Herald)

Fernandez was Mexico's Athlete of the Year in 2000, and also was nominated for the same award last year.

That's why NASCAR was doing handstands when a deal was worked out for the 41-year-old to drive in NASCAR's first sanctioned race south of the border -- the Mexico 200 Busch Series race Sunday.

It was like Tiger Woods announcing he would play the Blue Monster this week at Doral.

''The fan base is driven by idols here in Mexico,'' said Federico Alaman, director of motorsports for the race's promoter, OCESA.

``Adrian Fernandez is a racing idol in Mexico and will make people interested in this new kind of racing.''

Fernandez has raced many times at the site of the Busch Series race -- the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez road course, named after the Rodriguez brothers, Pedro and Ricardo, who raced in Daytona and in a handful of NASCAR races in the 1960s and '70s.

Fernandez plans to win, despite having only raced in the heavier stock cars during one four-race International Race of Champions series in 2001.

''My advantage is my fans. The other drivers can't touch me otherwise they can't get out of country,'' Fernandez said with a smile.

NEW TO NASCAR

As was the case for most Mexican drivers, NASCAR never was on Fernandez's radar until recently. Mexico is used to single-seater cars used in Champ Cars and Formula One. The country only has three ovals, one inside the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez and two others that are in decay.

''I was in CART [Champ Cars] during the best years of CART,'' said Fernandez, who won eight races in that series and finished second in the championship by just 10 points to Gil de Ferran in 2000. ``I raced against Mario Andretti, A.J. Foyt, Bobby Rahal, Nigel Mansell, some of the great drivers. My career was single-seater. I never looked into NASCAR.''

For the boy who began racing motocross at age 8, Fernandez said his career has been more than he dreamed it could be and doesn't plan on trying NASCAR full time.

''But I never say no,'' Fernandez said.

``I said before that I'm never going to drive IRL [because at the time there were big crashes], and then I'm driving IRL.''

Fernandez owns an Indy Racing League team with drivers Scott Sharp and Kosuke Matsuura, who will open the season Sunday in the Toyota Indy 300 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Fernandez, who switched into IRL last season and won three of the last six races, is only able to race in the Busch Series event because his own sponsorship fell through at the last minute.

Sharp, who brought his sponsorship, is running in Fernandez's car and with his crew.

''I don't know if I'd be interested in racing the whole [NASCAR] season; it's such a high demand on your schedule,'' Fernandez said. ``I've been racing 23 years straight. I'm getting married four days after the race.

``But the other day it hit me, that I'm not going to be driving the whole year, and that sort of felt weird. What am I going to do with myself?''

`A KID AGAIN'

For now, he said he feels ''like a kid again,'' being able to race in front of his hometown fans at least one more time.

''Adrian is huge and I think compared with a lot of the other big names in sports in the history of Mexico, he's tried to be closer to the people and the media,'' said Michel Jourdain, the first Mexican to race full time in the Busch Series.

``A lot of other guys, after five years, they go crazy.''

Sandra Becerril, a motorsports reporter for the daily newspaper Reforma in Mexico City, said of Fernandez: ``People love him. He's kind and friendly to the fans. Most of the fans know everything about him.

``They miss seeing him race here in Mexico and now they get their chance.''

ORIGINAL STORY-Miami Herald