Jeff Gordon Speedway? He says he's optimistic about that Toronto-area race track

  Jeff Gordon has high hopes for NASCAR in Canada, enough to put his name on a speedway project near Toronto (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  

   By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net

   BROOKLYN, Mich.
   Jeff Gordon, who has been involved with plans for a proposed oval speedway near Toronto for several years now, says bulldozers could be moving dirt on the one-mile track next year.
   And Gordon tells Canada's top motorsports journalist Dean McNulty ( http://bit.ly/ajnnxq ) that he would like to see NASCAR racing at that speedway eventually, following the model set by ex-driver Rusty Wallace and his Iowa Speedway.
   The planned track that Gordon is working on would be designed by Paxton Waters, who designed Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Iowa Speedway, and California speedway. It would have 65,000 seats, and could be expanded to 100,000.
   Gordon says that track could see racing within two years of first turning dirt at the Fort Erie, Ontario, location, on some 800 acres of lands near Niagara Falls.
   NASCAR has been running a late-summer Nationwide race at Montreal's Formula One track the past three years.
   But Gordon, who says he hasn't talked much with NASCAR about his track plans, says it would probably take an oval track to get Daytona officials really serious about a possible Cup race north of the border.
   What actually happens with this project, given the economy, is debatable. But it has potential for raising even more interest in the Montreal media about NASCAR, which will play at that city-center road course in just two weeks.
   The plot of land Gordon is working on is about five hours east of Michigan International Speedway and about three hours west of Watkins Glen.

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