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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
CUP: Montoya A Strong And Spirited Third
Juan Pablo Montoya had his best finish at Martinsville Speedway...
Tom Jensen  |  Posted October 25, 2009   Martinsville, VA

On of the eternal verities of the auto racing business is that a fast car will make up for a multitude of problems.

So as vexed as Juan Pablo Montoya was with his season’s-worst 35th-place run last weekend at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, Sunday’s short-track tussle at Martinsville Speedway more than made up for it.

Earnhardt Ganassi Racing brought the Colombian expatriate another rocketship to Martinsville, and Montoya made the best of it with a career-best third-place finish at the 0.526-mile track in Sunday’s TUMS Fast Relief 500.

And speaking of Earnhardt, Montoya would have made the late Dale Earnhardt proud, beating and banging with Jeff Gordon in a no-holds-barred battle between two of the sport’s best talents. Gordon ultimately finished fifth, with Denny Hamlin winning and NASCAR Sprint Cup points leader Jimmie Johnson taking second-place in the sixth race in the Chase for the Sprint Cup.

For his part, Montoya was more than satisfied with how the afternoon went and his third-place effort. “It's exciting to come every week out of the truck and have a fast race car,” said Montoya. “We've been doing it for a while now, and you know, it's kind of funny. I don't know where that extra pace came from when the Chase started. I thought we had great race cars, and right before the Chase we had good race cars. But when the Chase started, everybody, all the pit stop crew, stepped it up, we stepped it up. It's nice to see.”

In six Chase races, Montoya has finished third in half of them and fourth twice. Unfortunately, his Charlotte debacle is responsible for him being fifth in points, exactly 200 behind Johnson. Too far, realistically, to catch up.

“The way he's running, you've probably got to win the next five races and he's got to have some bad luck,” Montoya said of Johnson. “But for us right now this is our first Chase, we're learning to see what we have to do, how aggressive you've got to run. I think one of the things we learned, next year somehow we've got to win some races before the Chase. I think when you start so far behind already when the Chase starts, you don't have any cushion for a bad race or anything.”

As for his rough-and-tumble battle with Gordon, Montoya said it was one of them racing deals — or something along those lines.



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