“It seemed to come naturally to me,” Nadeau explained. “I felt comfortable in open-wheel cars and I was having a great time. Of course, winning made it that much more fun.”

Nadeau’s first racing experience was at a go-kart track in Bethany, Conn., just outside his hometown of Danbury, when he was seven years old. He went on to post more than 50 major karting wins from 1976 through 1983. In 1990, Nadeau won the International Karting Federation Regional Series championships in both the Stock Light and Superstock classes. He was a busy racer that year, also taking the championship in the Stock Medium class of the World Karting Association Grand Products Series.

Go-karts were just the beginning of a long line of open-wheel machines for Nadeau. In 1991, he began his professional racing career in the Skip Barber Eastern Series. The open-wheel series has served as a stepping stone for young drivers moving up to Indy Lights and, eventually, the Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) series. His list of accomplishments in two years of competition in the series includes winning the $100,000 Skip Barber Big Scholarship in 1992, 10 wins in 14 starts, three Fastest Lap of the Race awards and Rookie-of-the-Year honors.

The scholarship opened many doors for Nadeau, including a full-time ride in the Skip Barber Pro Series in 1993. Nadeau was a major force in the series for the next three years. In 22 starts, he earned five wins, seven pole positions and seven Fastest Lap of the Race awards.

He moved to Charlotte, N.C., in late 1995 to concentrate on stock car racing, but was only able to compete in two NASCAR events the next year. So instead, Nadeau returned to open-wheel competition in the Formula Opel European Union Series. He placed sixth in the overall point standings with five top-five and nine top-10 finishes on road courses throughout Europe. He also led America’s two-car contingent to the silver medal at Nations Cup VII in Donington, England, later that year.

Although Nadeau has spent years far removed from his racing roots while driving in the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series, he still credits open-wheel racing for his success.

“The cars are very different, but the competition is very intense in both open-wheel racing and NASCAR,” Nadeau explained. “The main adjustment I had to make was going from cars that weigh half as much as stock cars with tires that are twice as wide, to heavier cars with narrower tires. It’s not easy, but it’s fun.

“I always knew I wanted to be racing stock cars, no matter how many people wanted me to race Indy cars as a career. I just had to take a different road to get here than most of my competitors because I had the financial support I needed to get started in open-wheel racers rather than stock cars.”