JANUARY 6, 2005

A sign of the times

Champ Car has lost another of its Mexican stars with the news that Michel Jourdain Jr has signed to drive for Ford Motorsport to run a full season in the NASCAR Busch stock car series. Jourdain will become the first Hispanic driver to race a full NASCAR schedule. He will be running a Ford Taurus for PPC Racing. The 28-year-old Mexican has been racing in open-wheelers for the last nine years, most recently with the RuSport team. In his 152 starts Jourdain managed to win twice and was third in the championship in 2003 when he was driving for Bobby Rahal.

PPC Racing runs cars in all three of NASCAR's series with John Andretti in the Nextel Cup, Kenny Wallace in Busch and Terry Cook in the Craftsman Truck series. It is run by Greg Pollex and won the Busch title in 2000.

RuSport will be running AJ Allmendinger and former F1 driver Justin Wilson in Champ Cars this year.