Cheers and smiling faces greeted J.F. Veilleux, World Speed Motorsports driver, as he drove into pit lane finishing 6th on the streets of Toronto for round seven of the CART Toyota Atlantic Championship series in Toronto, Ontario, part of the Molson Indy Toronto, CART FedEx Championship weekend. “This was a great finish for my return to the Atlantic series,” said Veilleux, who last ran with Atlantics at Homestead (Miami) in March of this year. “It’s been three months since I’ve been in a car so I really didn’t know what to expect. The guys did a great job this weekend and I want to thank them for all of their hard work.”
Veilleux joined the World Speed team last week after receiving an unexpected phone call from World Speed Team Owner, Chuck West inviting him to run in two races, here in Toronto and Trois-Rivieres. “If you would have told me a month ago that I would be racing at Toronto, I would have thought it was a joke. This is a wonderful opportunity for me and I’m very thankful to Chuck and to my sponsor Rick Waddell of Northwest SpeedWerx.” said Veilluex.
When the green flag dropped at noon today, Veilleux and teammate Akihiro Asai were side by side on the starting grid in the 11th and 12th positions, but it didn’t take long for the teammates to move up, catching the front-runners. After a multi-car incident on the first lap, Veilleux gained several positions capturing the 5th spot, while Asai moved to 8th.Asai shortly moved up to the 6th position after the second full course yellow with only 15 laps down. “I just kept chasing and chasing and finally made it to 6th,” said Asai, who remained 6th until lap 28 when he started having mechanical problems. “I was having problems early on in the race, but kept pushing the car. The car just shut down. Turns out that my fuel pump failed. A racecar is not a mystery it’s a machine and these things happen. That’s what racing is all about,” said an optimistic Asai. Asai retired from the race with seven laps remaining.
As Asai battled with his mechanical problem, Veilleux battled with Martin Basso (#46 driver for Michael Shank Racing) for 5th place. On lap 34, the last lap of the race, Basso won the battle and passed Veilleux for 5th. “On the last re-start I was fighting for my position, but Basso passed me. We were one lap away from top five, but I am very happy with sixth.”
With a solid finish behind them, the World Speed team is thinking ahead to round eight of the CART Toyota Atlantic Championship, which takes place in Trois-Rivieres, Quebec, July 30 for the Grand Prix de Trois-Rivieres. “I’m really proud of what we accomplished this weekend. The guys have been working so hard and it’s finally starting to pay off. J.F. was an ideal candidate for this race. I knew he would be a front-runner here in Toronto. And Aki, despite his problem with car, did a fantastic job. This is only his fourth race in an Atlantic car and to say that he has acclimated well would be an understatement,” said West.
Today’s race winner is Andrew Bordin (PPI Motorsports), a native of suburban Toronto, followed by Buddy Rice (DSTP Motorsports) and Dan Wheldon (PPI Motorsports).
The Toronto race will be televised on CTV Sportsnet Monday, July 24 at 7:00 p.m. Eastern and RDS, Saturday July 29 at 8:30 a.m. Eastern. ESPN2 and ESPN International will also televise the race, Sunday, July 23 at 10:00 a.m.