More International Expansion?

Looks like NASCAR may be going after some more international dollars soon, if the source is to be believed.

According to this article in the Winston-Salem Journal, NASCAR is looking ahead to possibly more international races because of the success of the Busch Series race in Mexico City.  The article cites that the information is coming from NASCAR sources about what may happen in the future, but didn't name the sources.

Possible things that could happen (text in italics taken from the article)

This Mexico City weekend becomes a full Cup race, probably Sunday March 5, 2006.

The June Pocono Cup race is killed, replaced by the Watkins Glen Cup race, currently held in early August.

On the newly opened August 2006 weekend, the Busch series - with any interested Cup stars - will run in Montreal on the Gilles Villeneuve Formula One course on the island of Notre Dame, in the heart of the city of 3.5 million.

And NASCAR's Truck series enters the Mexico market by running a companion event at Monterrey - the city of three million 600 miles up the road from here, 21/2 hours from the U.S. border, a city called Mexico's richest town - with CART's Indy-car tour in April 2006.

It may not work out that way, but the betting is it will.

If this is the way things play out, I bet there will be a lot of disappointed fans.  I'm all for NASCAR trying to expand, but at what expense?  This surely won't help any of the teams save any money, heck, some probably can't afford to go.  And I'm definitely not a fan of adding more road courses.

It all boils down to one thing, NASCAR thinking more of the almighty dollar instead of the fans.  Oh sure, they'll say they're trying to expand the sport and fan base, but the only thing they will be expanding is their pockets.

I'm hoping these sources are wrong and this is not the direction NASCAR is taking.