| |  | | CIA Stock Photo | Montoya will be challenged by two recent rulers at The Glen, Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart. | | | | ROOKIE SENSATION | Montoya could rewrite the record book | If he wins at the Glen, Montoya would be the first driver to snag three-road course wins in one season |
| | By Tony Bolick / Sporting News Wire Service There may be some that are still surprised at how well Juan Pablo Montoya has been able to run in the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series.
The rookie Cup driver has a won at Formula One, captured the Indy 500 and was CART’s youngest champion. He has graduated to stock cars and won in Busch and Cup on road courses in 2007 and has a shot at history Sunday.
No one should be surprised anymore.
“I’ve got to say, with last year’s (Busch and Cup starts at the end of the year), I’m getting the hang of the car,” Montoya said. “I’m getting more comfortable to drive a little freer, a little bit looser and I think that’s helping a lot.”
Montoya could become the first NASCAR driver to capture three road course races in one season — and he gets two cracks at it with his final Busch start on Saturday.
Montoya has quite the resume as the first F1 driver to migrate to NASCAR. With his runner-up finish at the Brickyard and his ninth top 20 of 2007 last week at Pocono (16th), he is gaining momentum.
In June, Montoya used fuel strategy to win the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Infineon. Strategy helped, but Montoya had already driven from his 32nd starting spot to the top 20 by Lap 10. He was in the top 15 most of the race and in the top 10 nearly all the second half of the 110-lap race, leading the final seven laps.
“I think the biggest challenge is getting used to the cars ... how everybody races, learn to overtake people. That’s still very hard,”
Montoya said. “I think Donnie (Wingo), my crew chief, is starting to understand what I want out of the car and what I like and don’t like, and that really helps.”
Montoya will be challenged by two recent rulers at The Glen, Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart.
“We got behind these past few years,” Gordon said. “But the two-day test we had last week at Road Atlanta should really help us get back to the old advantage we used to have here.”
Gordon, the winningest road course driver in NASCAR (nine), dominated Watkins Glen in the late 1990s with three straight victories (1997-99).
He won again in 2001.
Stewart has carried the torch mostly since with three wins (2002,
2004-05) and a runner-up finish to Kevin Harvick last year.
“It’s definitely a place I feel like we’ve got the potential to win, even before we make a single lap,” Stewart said.
As is usually the case — and was in Sonoma — road course drivers dot the entry list throughout, including P.J. Jones, Brian Simo, Ron Fellows and Boris Said. One late addition is Patrick Carpentier, who made a big splash in his NASCAR debut in last week’s wild Busch race in Montreal, finishing second to Harvick.
“It’s been kind of a dream,” said Carpentier, who will drive the No. 10 Gillett Evernham Motorsports Dodge normally driven by Scott Riggs.
“Everything came about on Monday morning actually.”
Carpentier says he owes it to last week.
“Honestly, for me in Montreal, there was a lot of pressure because we only had the budget, the money to do one shot, one race, and it had to work,” he said. “It went really well.” | | Posted August 10, 2007 , 7:20 am EST
Last Updated November 19, 2008 , 9:22 pm EST | | | | | | |
