Trident Racing Welcomes Canadian NASCAR Schedule

Courtesy Stuart Morrison Public Relations

Montréal, Québec (April 20, 2007) – Tuesday’s long-awaited unveiling of the 2007 NASCAR Canadian Tire Series schedule has been welcomed by Québec’s leading stock car operation, Saint-Eustache’s Trident Racing. Richard Durivage, the Montréal-born, owner-driver of the #18 Trident Racing entry, has expressed his relief that the schedule has been announced allowing his team to plan for the season ahead both on and off-track.

“I’m pleased that the 2007 schedule’s finally been announced,” Durivage stated. “I think the list of venues is great as it allows us to participate across Canada and there’s a good mix of ovals and road courses to push us to the limits. The diversity of tracks is a real feature of the series and I’m sure the spectacle of wheel to wheel racing will thrill fans throughout the country.”

The 2007 NASCAR Canadian Tire Schedule includes oval races at familiar Ontario venues such as Cayuga International Speedway, host of the season-opener on Saturday 26th May, as well as Barrie Speedway and Mosport Speedway with trips west to B.C.’s Sun Valley Speedway and east to Nova Scotia’s Riverside Speedway.

Trident Racing’s home province of Québec hosts what is undoubtedly going to be one of the highlights of the coming season when the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series supports the country’s first ever NASCAR Busch Series event, the ‘NAPA Auto Parts 200’, hosted at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, 3rd-4th August. Two weeks later sees the series head north for the ‘Grand Prix de Trois-Rivieres’, 17th-19th August.

“We’ve always referred to the old CASCAR Series and now the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series as the younger brother to the likes of the ‘big three’ NASCAR series, Truck, Busch and Nextel Cup,” said Durivage. “For us to be a support race to Canada’s first ever Busch Series race is a great honour not to mention a great opportunity to showcase our product and abilities to some of stock car racing’s premier teams and decision makers.”

The delay in finalizing and releasing the 2007 NASCAR Canadian Tire Series schedule, with just five weeks to go before Round 1 at Cayuga, has without doubt posed issues for many of the teams and competitors in the championship as they look to lock-down commercial deals for the year ahead, Trident Racing being no exception.

From its 3000 square-foot race shop based at the Saint-Eustache Autodrome, home to the team’s additional racing operations including entries in the NASCAR Busch Series East and the NASCAR Whelen All-American Cummins Pro Truck Series, team-owner Richard Durivage has been working on securing partnerships for the 2007 season without knowing, until Tuesday’s announcement, the schedule of events.

Commenting on this issue, Richard remarked, “With the schedule taking so long to come out it’s understandable that a lot of potential partners we were in discussion with became a little nervous about the situation. Nobody was too sure where NASCAR Canada was going to take this thing so now that the schedule’s finally out it’s left us all a little scrambling at the last minute to see what commitments we can now generate armed with the knowledge we have.”

He continued, “I want to compete in as many races as I can but needless to say that will depend on what support we can activate knowing where we’re racing coupled with, what I have to say is, a first-rate TV package now that the series will be broadcast on TSN throughout the season.”

Durivage has confirmed his plans to contest next month’s Cayuga opener in the #18 Trident Racing entry, as well as the Speedway’s September return date, along with both Québec rounds in August and the Riverside Speedway date in September in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. The 38-year-old plans to bolster his sophomore season of stock car racing with additional dates on the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series calendar subject to commercial backing.

For more information visit www.tridentracing.com.