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It was early August 1996. Indycar had an off week and the forecast was for fair weather.  There was no excuse for not painting that one remaining side of the house, at least not until after I discovered what was happening in Trois-Rivieres, Quebec that weekend,

I recalled, vaguely, the annual Trans Am/Toyota Atlantics weekends at Trois-Rivieres (Three Rivers in English). I had casually watched some of those events presented as TV re-runs at odd hours from time to time. This weekend, however, would mark the first time that the Grand Prix de Trois-Rivieres street extravaganza would feature a CART-sanctioned race -- the Indy Lights.

"What's a mere 300-mile drive, especially when there's no need to spend for a hotel room, after the thousands of miles and big room charges that I've racked up over the last six weeks chasing the Indycars through Cleveland, Toronto and Michigan?" I said to myself.

So, at 2:00 AM on Sunday, August 4, 1996 I jumped in the car and headed north. By four-thirty I was on the outskirts of Montreal where I stopped to stretch, check the road map and have a cup of coffee. It was easy ordering at an American-looking Dunkin' Donuts shop. The young lady behind the counter was quite friendly and seemed eager to converse in English.

Trois-Rivieres, the New World's most venerable street event, is located about 90 miles north of cosmopolitan Montreal. An hour-or-so later, there I was -- starvin' like Marvin for a big breakfast.

"Quaint little European-looking city out here in the Quebeckian sticks," I thought. "Put your imagination to work and you might even picture yourself in Frawnce." It didn't turn ugly until after I parked the car near the main gate and walked a few blocks down a corkscrew to a busy little restaurant.

"Bon jour," the waitress greeted me. The rest of what she said after that was all Greek to me. 

I studied the menu but really had no idea what I was reading.  There were no visual aids on the clean white bill of fare.  I was in the mood for some hot cereal, so when the waitress returned to take my order I asked for oatmeal as clearly and politely as I could. She didn't understand.

"See-ray-al," I offered nice and slow. No dice.

"Pour-odge?" I queried. Negatory.

By the time I had finished reciting cereal brand names in my best faux French accent it was quite obvious that Madame Garconette was just plain refusing to acknowledge English -- the language of the nearby USA and the predominant tongue of her own nation.

I was not about to dishonor my favorite actor, Jackie Gleason, by doing Gigot-like hand gestures to explain my request, so when the waitress impatiently pointed to the breakfast section of the menu for the fourth time I finally put my finger on Crepes -- the only word on the page that I recognized. 

"Oui, crepes!" Garconette squealed in mock delight.

But no sooner did she am-scray to the kitchen than I began wondering if crepes would turn out to be those creepy mini-pan girlie rollup thingies they serve at yuppie Sunday brunches.  I prayed that they would be something more substantial and American, like hotcakes.

My prayer was answered when Fifi showed up a few minutes later with a tall stack that shared an outsized plate with a mountain of crispy home fries. In fairness, these were actually some of the best pancakes I had ever eaten. Unfortunately, however, those pancakes were not nearly delicious enough to neutralize the bad taste in my mouth over the earlier anti-American episode.

Once inside the interesting Grand Prix venue I was impressed by the quality of the temporary circuit and by the obvious fervor of French-Canadian racing fans. Though I heard not a word of English spoken all day, I nonetheless felt at home within the race venue. Speed, of course, is a universal language.

The winner of Saturday's Atlantics race, the affable Patrick Carpentier who later went on to win some races in CART and Champ Car, mingled with the delighted throng of his fellow Quebecois. Other local favorites followed Patreek's lead -- a very homey touch. There was lots of laughter.

My viewing position for the Indy Lights race was at the end of a kink that leads into The Gate, a colorful stone arch monument. The racecourse goes right through the archway of The Gate and into a left-hander that shoots uphill past the city's swimming pool complex. Then it's around a playground and into a series of esses that run past an out-of-use minor league baseball stadium and a hippodrome -- French for horseracing track.

That premier Trois-Rivieres Indy Lights race was a nail-biter. Teammates Tony Kanaan and Helio Castro-Neves swapped the lead throughout the main event. Helio, a subsequent Indy 500 and TV series dance contest winner, notched his very first CART-sanctioned victory that day, although I don t remember him bursting into tears, doing the Samba or climbing a catch fence after getting out of his car.

After the race I spotted Mario Andretti getting into his Ferrari for the trip back to Nazareth, PA. One of Mario's sons, the not-so-famous Jeff Andretti, had been a back-marker, driving a right-hand drive Euro-spec Toyota during the running of the now-defunct North American Touring Car Championship series race that preceded the Indy Lights.

On the way out of Trois-Rivieres, as I drove past the little restaurant at the bottom of the corkscrew, I vowed: "I'll never go back there again!"

Then, at the end of the main drag just before the onramp for the highway back to Montreal, I saw one of the most anti-American things you could ever imagine. The sign on a KFC read: Poulet Frit a la Kentucky -- not 300 miles from the American Flag at my own front doorstep!

Though I tried my level best and had the speedometer needle buried all the way from Trois-Rivieres to Montreal, I was never able to get within eye contact of Mario's Ferrari.

Nonetheless, chasing the Icon of Speed certainly enabled me to relate to the feelings that his son Jeff must have suffered as he embarrassingly brought up the rear in the NATCC race.  Perhaps we both should have stayed home with a bucket of paint and a bucket of chicken in the good old USA that weekend.

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