T. Labonte completes successful test in Montreal

MONTREAL -- Terry Labonte declared the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve ready for American stock cars after testing the road course Tuesday in preparation NASCAR's upcoming Canadian debut.

Labonte, who retired after last season, drove a rental car around the 2.71-mile closed course to familiarize himself with the layout before turning official laps in a Chevrolet owned by Richard Childress Racing. Several NASCAR officials were on hand to observe.

"I was really impressed with the track," Labonte said. "We got the car working well fairly quickly and made some changes on it and our people got up to speed pretty close to as fast as we can go. The test has gone well."

So well that the test was cut short after Labonte completed 21 laps during the afternoon session.

The inaugural Montreal 200 on the second-tier Busch Series is scheduled for Aug. 4 on the famed track that has hosted 28 Formula One races, including the Canadian Grand Prix last Sunday.

Although the course has never before hosted stock cars, Labonte said the cars won't have many issues.

"I think that these cars will adapt well to the track," Labonte said. "It is probably a little bit on the narrow side on the race track but it's not too narrow, I don't think. I think there are a couple of pretty good passing points that I've seen so far, I think the rest of the passing is going to be when somebody gets out of shape."

Labonte was asked if groundhogs presented any problems after Anthony Davidson was forced to abandon Sunday's race after his car struck one of the rodents that populate Ile Notre-Dame, the island in the St. Lawrence River where the racetrack is situated.

"We saw three or four of them out there when we were riding around the track," Labonte said. "I think the noise of the stock car scared them away so I didn't see any when I took the car around the track. Hopefully they'll make a good decision not to come across."