Villeneuve close to NASCAR deal?

UPDATE This rumor is officially downgraded to 'false.' Not only did Villeneuve not land a NASCAR ride, he could not even get a ride for the Montreal Busch Series race this weekend. The bottom line is that JV should have moved from F1 to Champ Car, instead he did LeMans but other than that he's tending to his garden, pulling weeds and the like, his career done.

02/19/07 Jacques Villeneuve's agent Craig Pollock says Villeneuve's is "very close" to lining up a title sponsor for a NASCAR ride.

"There may be certain teams that really don't want to be involved with him but there are other teams, very good teams, that do want to be involved," Pollock said.

Villeneuve may do some driving in ARCA, the Craftsman truck series and the Busch series, which has a race in Montreal on Aug. 4, before moving up to NASCAR and the Nextel Cup.

"That's still the main plan," Villeneuve said. "We're working hard with Craig on the NASCAR project for 2008."

Champ Car, one of the two offshoots with the IRL from the former IndyCar series, has expressed interest in having Villeneuve back, but Pollock said that won't happen.

"His challenge is to go into something totally different and he's absolutely determined that that is going to be NASCAR," he said.

Villeneuve is in the process of moving from Villars, Switzerland to a C$3-million house in posh Westmount, west of downtown Montreal, to be closer to NASCAR.