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Montoya gaining ground, respect in Cup ranks

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Updated Oct 16, 2009 10:41 AM ET
     
 
Juan Pablo Montoya and his Earnhardt Ganassi Racing team must be in a state of disbelief. After all, they've posted the highest average finish in NASCAR's Chase for the Sprint Cup with a pair of third-place finishes and a worst of fourth, yet they are losing ground. How can that be possible? Well, Hendrick Motorsports' Jimmie Johnson has won two of those races, matched Montoya with a fourth-place finish in one and has a worst finish of ninth. But Montoya is taking it in stride. Since making his first Chase this season, the Earnhardt Ganassi driver has proved to be relatively unflappable. He's calm when questioned, expresses confidence in his team and its potential but brings a realistic level of expectation to the Chase. While it's certainly possible for Montoya to win the title this season — he's currently third in the standings and 58 points behind Johnson — the driver is maintaining his focus on continuing to learn about the series and help his team improve. And he's enjoyed an unexpected dividend in recent weeks. It seems that Montoya has caught the eye of the men he's battling for the title and is garnering an increasing amount of respect from them. Montoya, in just his third full season of Cup competition after an open-wheel career that included an Indianapolis 500 victory and a stint in Formula One, has gained substantial ground on his fellow Cup drivers throughout this season. Since the Chase started, he has posted his top finishes of the season and become a regular contender for the win.

He has, in the course of the past couple of months, gone from a driver outside the Chase field and trying to battle into it to one who is a valid contender for his first Cup title. How did this happen? With a lot of hard work, say both Montoya and the men he's fighting for the title. Montoya says that the team has been building to this point — and that he himself has improved. Together, they've finally figured things out and are now reaping the benefits of all the hours put into the effort. "If you look before the Chase started, we finished third in Atlanta," he says. "We ran second in Bristol, and we blew a tire. We should have finished second in Pocono. We should have won Indy. It was a lot of races we were good, and there were other races we went not with our best cars. We were building better cars. Our cars at the time were good enough for what we needed to do." Now they appear to be even better. And everything else seems to be accelerating as well. "It's just everything's clicking," he says. "It keeps clicking, you know. I'm driving the car a lot better. I understand the car a lot better. Just something clicked, you know what I mean? And I figured out a little bit here, a little bit there.

Keeping track

Juan Pablo Montoya
Juan Pablo Montoya
Earnhardt Ganassi Racing
2009 at a glance
Starts
Wins
Top fives
Top 10s
Laps led
30
0
6
16
348
"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.'" Johnson sees that commitment coming into play. He has watched Montoya adjust to stock cars and make the transition as he competed against the sport's elite — and seems impressed by what Montoya has accomplished. "In some ways, I hate to see it because he's doing a great job," Johnson says of Montoya. "But in other ways, I'm proud of him. I'm proud of the commitment he has had for the sport to come over and to start over here in the U.S. and race a totally different vehicle, you know. "He's putting in the time. He's a very talented driver. He races people out there well, and I've got to commend him and his team. The team has been going through some tough times with the merger and they only have a two-car effort and things like that, so they've done a really good job. Hopefully, they just do a decent job the rest of the year, but they're doing a great job right now." Johnson's Hendrick teammate Mark Martin isn't surprised by the transition at all. He has been a fan and cheerleader for Montoya from the start. He always believed that given time, Montoya would be someone to contend with in the Cup ranks. Now, as he sits second in the standings and 46 points ahead of Montoya, Martin seems to be enjoying watching the native of Bogota, Colombia, spread his wings in the series. "I feel he is racing hard and smart," Martin says. "That is what it took to get him in the Chase, and I feel like he is racing the same way, as hard as he can as smart as he can."
Martin has been part of the process to helping Montoya get there as well. He, like Johnson, has spoken to Montoya about adjustments and the nuances of the stock cars as the driver worked to get a better handle on them. Martin, long a fan of mentoring drivers adjusting to the Cup ranks, may have gotten as much out of the relationship as Montoya himself has. "It is humbling to me that he asks me a lot of questions," Martin says. "That is pretty incredible to see somebody of his talent. We talk, he asks a few questions, and we talk back and forth a lot. I admire and appreciate him." Montoya, for his part, seems to be making the most of his Chase experience. That applies not only to his on-track performance but also to his attitude about a championship run. However this turns out, he's pleased with the progress his team has made this season — and not about to get overly caught up in how the standings play out week to week. "We're doing the best we can," he says. "If it's good enough, it's great. If it's not, well, move on. There is another year."

Rea White is a writer for NASCAR Scene, which is published weekly, 46 weeks per year. Visit www.scenedaily.com for more information.

Tagged: Juan Pablo Montoya, Mark Martin, Jimmie Johnson

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