NASCAR Winston Cup Bud at Watkins Glen Preview: Jerry Marquis
6 August 1997
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ENFIELD, Conn. -- There is probably nobody more anxious to return to Watkins Glen International than Jerry Marquis. Due to a full-time commitment to the NASCAR Featherlite Modified Tour and only a part-time commitment to the NASCAR Busch North Series, Marquis did not race in the Burnham Boilers 150 last year. But, in 1995, Marquis led a good portion of the race, hoping to stretch his fuel mileage far enough to win the race, but it was not to be. "In a sense, I feel that the track owes me one after what happened there in 1995," said Marquis. Marquis has been around the sport of auto racing long enough to understand that race tracks are not very good at paying off debts, and that he will have to earn anything he can get out of Watkins Glen when he returns there on Saturday, August 9. "I'm going in with a different team this time, the Ski-Doo/O'Connor GMC team, and it is a great team. We've already won a couple of short track races this year and a superspeedway race, so we would like nothing better than to add a road course win to complete our set of wins for the year," said Marquis. When the NASCAR Busch North Series races at the Glen, some pretty serious road racers manage to come up with rides for the race. In the early stages of Busch North Series road racing, it was the veteran road racers who would beat the Busch North regulars. "It's really like anything else in racing. Experience counts for a whole lot. But, the Busch North Series has developed a number of good road racers who I would put up against anybody. And we usually manage to attract some of the best-known road racers in the country to our road racing events. I'll tell you one thing, when you do well in a Busch North race here at Watkins Glen, you've done well by anybody's standards," said Marquis. Marquis is in the thick of the battle for the 1997 NASCAR Busch North Series Championship, and a good run at Watkins Glen would go a long way towards achieving that goal. "In a championship run, you often have to take what luck gives you, and move on to the next race. But, I also know that you often have to make your own luck, and that's what we'll be trying to do at Watkins Glen," said Marquis. Based on the luck he has had at Watkins Glen in the past, and a little luck-making effort of his own, Marquis is in hoping to be the luckiest guy at the track on Saturday afternoon.
