MotoGP legend Valentino Rossi took got to drive something completely different Monday at Charlotte Motor Speedway. The nine time champion climbed into a NASCAR Nationwide Series Toyota normally driven by Kyle Busch and took some high speed laps around the 1.5 speedway located in the heart of NASCAR country.
After some coaching from Busch, who has three Nationwide Series wins the season the ride, known as ‘The Doctor’ to his fans, climbed into the Toyota and hit the track. After it was over Rossi emerged from the car grinning ear-to-ear.
“It was so cool to understand the feeling,” he said in a press release from Monster Energy who arranged the meeting. “I have a lot of friends from Europe and Italy who follow NASCAR. It looks like it’s a completely different type of racing than what we do in Europe and I expected something more like this –exciting, high speed and a great feeling in the corner. In the bank you have a lot of grip, so you are glued on the racetrack. It was great, I enjoyed it a lot. I love driving the race car, and I always have, so it was exciting to drive a NASCAR.” MORE>>>
Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.
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