NASCAR Doesn't Sound Right in French

Yesterday the NASCAR Busch Series raced for the first time north of the border at a road course in Montreal, Canada. There's just something not right about hearing the prerace announcements made in French. I don't mind hearing someone sing "Oh Canada", but spare me the French.

The race had a controversial finish:

MONTREAL (Aug 4) - Marcos Ambrose should have won the race. Robby Gordon insists he did.

In the end, it was Kevin Harvick who celebrated the victory in Saturday's inaugural Busch Series race in Canada.

It was a controversial finish that thrilled the crowd, infuriated NASCAR and probably jeopardized Gordon's participation in Sunday's Nextel Cup race at Pocono Raceway.

Gordon refused to forfeit his position on the track when ordered to by NASCAR late in Saturday's race, officials said he intentionally knocked Ambrose out of the race, and then refused to pull off the track as ordered.

He also celebrated as if he had won the event - behavior that is expected to earn him a suspension before Sunday's event at Pocono.

NASCAR doesn't like that kind of stuff. They'll have some words for Gordon and none of them will be in French. This morning the first of what will likely be several hammers came down on Gordon:

NASCAR Parks Robby Gordon at Pocono: As a result of his actions on the race track at Saturday’s Busch Series race at Montreal, NASCAR has parked driver Robby Gordon for today’s Pennsylvania 500 at Pocono Raceway. Referencing Section 12-2 of the 2007 NASCAR rule book … “if the act or omission of a member is determined by a NASCAR official to constitute a threat to the orderly conduct of the event, NASCAR may take emergency action against that member …” That action includes parking a driver for an event. Parking is final, non-appealable and non-reviewable. Towards the end of Saturday’s race at Montreal, Robby Gordon demonstrated blatant disrespect and disregard for NASCAR directives – on multiple occasions. His actions were certainly disruptive to the orderly conduct of the event. NASCAR will continue to review this situation and address any further actions at the beginning of this week.

I'm guessing there will be a big fine, loss of Busch series points (no big deal to Gordon), and possibly some extended time off for Gordon. This was NASCAR's first race in Canada and the last thing they wanted was for a driver to blatently ignore their rulings and make a spectacle of himself in front of the 68,000 Canadian fans.