VILLENEUVE ARRIVES IN NASCAR.(Competition)

Former Formula One, CART and Indianapolis 500 champion Jacques Villeneuve, 36, is headed for NASCAR. Toyota team Bill Davis Racing will enter him in several Craftsman Truck Series races this fall and the Oct. 5 ARCA race at Talladega Superspeedway. He likely will debut in the truck race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sept. 22, then run the season's final six races after that.

If all goes well, Davis will field a full-schedule Nextel Cup Camry for Villeneuve and crew chief Slugger Labbe next season. As AutoWeek went to press, Labbe and truck series points leader Mike Skinner were scheduled to be with Villeneuve at a truck test Aug. 27 at Chicagoland Speedway.

"It is an experiment, if you will,'' Davis said at Bristol. "He's pretty confident he can do it, and we are, too. I think it'll work out just fine.''

Why trucks and not the Busch Series? Team manager Mike Brown said trucks are more akin to Cup's Car of Tomorrow, which Villeneuve will race next year.

Nextel Cup director John Darby said that Villeneuve racing in NASCAR should be no problem. "His resume is certainly good enough,'' he said. "We know he has the talent and the car control, but we still want to see him. If he runs [as we think he will] this fall, we probably won't have any issues with him.''

PORSCHE WINS MOSPORT

Timo Bernhard and Romain Dumas scored another overall win in the American Le Mans Series, as the duo led the way at Mosport for Penske Racing. Penske won its second-straight LMP2-class team championship. Bernhard took the lead in his Porsche RS Spyder with only three minutes left, after Allan McNish's leading Audi R10 TDI became stuck in gear.