This weekend former AMA Superbike Champion Miguel Duhamel will temporarily park his American Honda CBR1000RR Superbike and race a tube-framed, V8-powered Chevy Monte Carlo in the Dickies 200 presented by Canadian Shield, round two of the inaugural NASCAR Canadian Tire Series, at Mosport International Raceway, in Bowmanville, Ontario, Canada. “It’s something that materialized,” Duhamel told Roadracingworld.com via cell phone Thursday. “Alan [Labrosse, Duhamel’s long-time manager] had a car and didn’t have a driver and asked me if I wanted to do it. Of course, we asked Honda if it was OK with them, and they were good with it, and all my sponsors. I said, ‘What the hell?’ “I’m not by any means quitting [motorcycle] road racing and doing car racing right now. I just want to try and get a feel for it and see what could be in the future, if that could lead to something we want to do or whatever. I think like any motorcycle racer on this planet we’re all interested in trying a little bit of car racing, whether it be any form of car racing. The cars are pretty good and it’s going to be interesting, for sure. I think everyone is going to get a kick out of it, including me, of course.” The NASCAR Canadian Tire Series is a new series and is comparable to the regional NASCAR Busch Series, the feeder classes to the NEXTEL Cup Championship. Duhamel will drive a car sponsored by Wal-Mart, Protor and Gamble and the Children’s Miracle Network. Asked if he had ever raced a car before or taken any car racing schools, Duhamel said, “No, no schools or anything like that. This is jumping in the really, really deep end of the pool. But we’re going to give it a try and see how it goes. And they’re even calling for rain. So why not? Might as well go all the way. “I did do some testing last Thursday at a track day [on Mosport’s 2.5-mile, 10turn road course]. The whole team came out, but unfortunately they had the wrong gearing in the car. That was just a mishap, but I was on the rev-limiter. So I only did about 20 laps. That just permitted me to set the pedals and stuff like that. But that’s too bad, because I would’ve liked to have done about 100 laps to try and get comfortable. I push the car I drive on the street more than I pushed that car on the racetrack (laughs), because I didn’t know what I was in.” In addition to his young teammate Andrew Ranger, Duhamel said current Champ Car driver Alex Tagliani will be on hand to help him with tips and some spotting work, but overall he has “zero expectations because I didn’t do enough laps testing. Hopefully, we’ll be able to come and do something real good here this weekend. Like I said, priority one is have a good time and get out of there safe and sound, to get around the racetrack at a decent pace, make the grid and once we make the grid try not to finish last (laughs). Then we’ll go to Miller [Motorsports Park] and try to win some races for Honda.” The 50-lap/125-mile Dickies 200 presented by Canadian Shield is scheduled to start at 2:15 p.m. Eastern Time on Sunday, June 17. According to NASCAR.com, every round of the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series is broadcast on TSN, a Canadian sports network, but a quick search of the programming portion of TSN’s website could not find a listing for the Dickies 200 presented by Canadian Shield.