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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
CUP: Montoya NASCAR’s Next Superstar?
Juan Pablo Montoya had a breakout season in 2009...
Tom Jensen  |  Posted December 24, 2009   Charlotte, NC
Juan Pablo Montoya won at Infineon Raceway as a rookie in 2007. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
Although the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series has been dominated in recent years by drivers from California and Indiana, its newest emerging superstar hails from the South. As in the Deep South. Bogota, Colombia, to be exact.
Juan Pablo Montoya qualified for NASCAR's Chase for the Sprint Cup for the first time in 2009 and finished eighth in points. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

Don’t let the geography fool you, though. Juan Pablo Montoya is as fired up about driving a stock car as any red-blooded American racer. Maybe more so.

Montoya made his name as a racer by winning the Indy 500 and the CART championship in the United States and the Monaco Grand Prix and six other Formula 1 races, along with 30 podium finishes worldwide.

“It doesn't get any better than this, I'll tell you the truth,” said Montoya. “I've been in Formula 1. I've been in IndyCars, I've been in CART. I've been in you name it. ... And the best racing is right here. I'm not saying this because I'm here. I'm saying this because I've lived all of them, and nothing compares to this.”

In 2009, Montoya had a breakout third season in NASCAR that saw him qualify for the Chase for the Sprint Cup for the first time and give four-time series champion Jimmie Johnson a run for his money before eventually finishing eighth in points.

In the process, Montoya impressed people with his mixture of aggression, frankness and humor, a combination that reminded some of the late Dale Earnhardt.

More to the point, perhaps, he did with Earnhardt Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates, a team that was formed from a merger last year between Chip Ganassi’s organization and Dale Earnhardt Inc. And EGR has a fraction of the resources of the powerhouse teams like Hendrick Motorsports and Roush Fenway Racing.

“If Juan drove for Hendrick, he’d have won five or six races this year,” Sabates said flatly.

Although he’s still looking for his first oval track victory in NASCAR, Montoya was a sensation in 2009. Crew chief Brian Pattie figured out that Montoya needed to average a 14th-place finish in NASCAR’s regular season to make the Chase, so during the 26-race regular season, the team raced conservatively with the goal of making the Chase.

And that’s exactly what they did, with Montoya getting the team’s majority owner Chip Ganassi his first Chase berth.

“There have been a lot of questions over the years about our organization and I think a lot of it has been unfounded,” said Ganassi. “So I think this kind of validates the way we operate.”

Certainly, it made Montoya’s competitors sit up and take notice.

“I just felt like it was a matter of time before the team stepped up and he got the experience to be competitive,” said Jeff Gordon. “Now, he has stepped up in a whole new way and surprised a lot of us throughout the Chase. Obviously that team has built him some great race cars and Brian (Pattie, crew chief) has done a great job and Juan has stepped up right along with him. … He brings his own unique style to it which I think is what is going to make him successful.”

“His biggest gain has been to drive the car and to come in and tell the team what the car is doing and what he needs it to do better,” added Mark Martin, this year’s championship runner-up. “And that couldn't come the first year he was here. It's impossible. It comes with experience. He's also developed a great touch in being able to rally his team around him even though at times he might be a little bit short-fused a little bit about things, but nothing like he was two years ago at this point in time.”

From Montoya’s point of view, making the Chase in 2009 after finishing 20th and 25th in his first two seasons was simply a matter of coming to grips with low-downforce, ill-handling stock cars, and understanding how to drive them after a lifetime in open-wheel racers.

“Just something clicked, you know what I mean?” said Montoya. “And I figured out a little bit here, a little bit there. Once things start clicking, you understand. And they tell you — it's like Jimmie Johnson told me the same thing: ‘This is what I do.’ And you try it, and you don't get it. Three years, three and a half years down the road you go, ‘Oh, I understand what he was saying.’ And it works.”

And all that’s done is motivate the team for 2010.

“I think one of the things we learned, next year somehow we've got to win some races before the Chase,” said Montoya. “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.”

“It’s kind of like what we’ve been wanting to do, a goal that we set, and we’ve achieved it,” added Ganassi. “Sort of now that we’re here we have new goals. It’s certainly nice to climb those mountains, and you know meet goals that you set for yourself but all that does is set new goals now.”

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief for SPEEDtv.com, the former Executive Editor of NASCAR Scene and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. He is the author of Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of SPEED, and has appeared on television and radio shows to discuss NASCAR racing. Jensen is the past President of the National Motorsports Press Association. Jensen is the 1997 National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year and has won numerous national and state awards for news reporting, columns and feature writing. The Answer Man is back at SPEEDtv.com! Tom Jensen answers your questions during every race week and looks forward to hearing from you - please e-mail it to



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