Raikkonen talks about Cup, may run Nationwide race soon

Kimi Raikkonen practicing on Friday

Kimi Raikkonen, who makes his NASCAR debut tonight in the Camping World Truck Series, spoke to the media Friday for the first time, indicating that he would like to run in Cup later this year and also hinting that if things go well tonight, he might drive a Nationwide car next weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Raikkonen, the 2007 Formula One champion, is driving for Kyle Busch's team tonight. Raikkonen made it through both practice sessions Friday morning without any major incidents (he did scrape the wall). He ranked 30th quickest among 36 drivers in the first practice session and was 30th among 37 drivers in the final truck practice session.

Raikkonen, who is slipping his NASCAR events in between rally races he's scheduled to do, said he wanted to come to NASCAR because "I want to try different things. I was interested to see how it is. I don't have any plans for next year in anything I do. If I completely suck, there's no reason to come back. Hopefully, it goes better than today.'' As for his NASCAR schedule this year, Raikkonen said: "I'm looking at this weekend and hopefully next weekend I'm here. Then after that, there's no real plans yet. Hopefully, I can get to run some Cup races that would be nice. There's not awful lot of planning. I'll try to do the best now and see what happens.'' Virginian Pilot