GOIN' SOUTH; NASCAR invades Mexico. Ole!(Motorsports)(Telcel Motorola Busch Series 200)(National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing)

Byline: AL PEARCE

Upward of 30 million documented Mexicans live in the United States, virtually all with close family ties south of the border. That demographic treasure sits there, innocently waiting for a forward-looking sports enterprise to come a courtin'.

Buenos dias, Mexicans everywhere. Meet your new best friends from Daytona Beach, U.S. of A.

NASCAR's first major outreach toward that lucrative Latino market was the Telcel Motorola Busch Series 200. Martin Truex Jr. beat Kevin Harvick, Carl Edwards, David Stremme and Boris Said respectively in an 80-lap, 201-mile race around the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez road course. Rounding out the top-10 were Rusty Wallace, Clint Bowyer, Kenny Wallace, Ashton Lewis Jr. and national hero Adrian Fernandez.

Truex Jr. led three times for 45 laps, including the final 28, and comfortably scored his seventh career victory in 52 Busch starts.

Make no mistake. The race itself was perhaps the least important reason NASCAR was in suburban Mexico City.

Organization president Mike Helton, chairman of the board Brian France, COO George Pyne and vice president Jim Hunter flew in (along with about 1200 NASCAR employees) primarily to check the economic pulse and to schmooze their newest sponsor partners. "We have no interest in racing here just for the sake of racing,'' Pyne said. "We're here to build NASCAR and stock car racing in Mexico. We see potential for great growth in Latin America. This is relevant because it's a championship event with seven Mexicans in the field.''