Asian Motor Sports

Former Formula One driver Narain Karthikeyan is exporing opportunities to join the US NASCAR series and has already tested with a new team, the Indian was quoted in local media as saying on Thursday.

Karthikeyan, who became India’s first Formula One driver when he raced for the Jordan team in 2005, had driven in the European Le Mans Series in the second half of 2009.

“I tested for Starbeast Motorsports just three days ago at Daytona (International Speedway),” Karthikeyan told DNA newspaper on Thursday.

Starbeast Motorsports is a new team in the ARCA racing series for stock cars.

“It’s all open now and I have lots of options. By January, something should be finalised,” the 32-year-old from Coimbatore said.

For a clarification to the few motorsport fans from India that pass thru here there have been numerous press reports in India stating Karthikeyan is switching to the NASCAR Series in 2010.

Put simply, it’s not going to happen.

Yes he did test a stock car type vehicle at Daytona last weekend. It was fielded by the new StarGeast team as linked above, but the test was in and for the Automobile Racing Club of America (ARCA) Series.

ARCA is not affiliated to NASCAR financially although they do race similar type vehicles such as Dodges, Toyotas, Fords and Chevys. The series also races on some, but not all tracks that NASCAR holds events on.

As for Karthikeyan’s chance to enter NASCAR I rank them as slim…. and none.

The most likely scenario is for Narain to run some but not all the 20 event ARCA season that starts at Daytona in February.