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CUP: Montoya Making Brickyard History
Written by: Tom Jensen   
07/26/2007 - 07:00 PM
Indianapolis, Ind.
 

One way or another, Juan Pablo Montoya will make history at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, becoming the first driver to ever compete in the Indianapolis 500, the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard and an IMS Formula 1 race.

The energetic and affable Colombian would also like to become the first driver to win both IndyCar and Nextel Cup races at the Brickyard, though he said Friday his chances of winning on Sunday aren't especially good.
Regardless of how his weekend goes, Montoya will make history at IMS. (LAT photo) MORE NASCAR PHOTOS » More Photos

"For me, at the end of the day, I think it's exciting to be here, to actually do the three races," Montoya said Friday morning at Indy. "To be able to compete in all three of them was pretty exciting but at the end of the day we've got to focus and see what we need to do: come here, work on the car and get the job done. That's all the matters at the end of the day."

As for his odds on Sunday, Montoya said, "I'm hoping for a good result. It's like with the F1 program, when I came in here we probably had two or three chances of winning the race and we broke down. This was one of the races in F1 that was hard for me. We'll see."

That's a far cry from 2000, when Montoya drove one of car owner Chip Ganassi's IndyCars to victory in the Indy 500. "I don't think we were that confident," Montoya said of his Indy race that season. "I thought we had a chance but I don't think we were like, 'We're going to kick everybody's ass.' We did, it was great. That was the plan."

So far in his first season in the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series, Montoya has won on the road course at Sonoma, Calif., and leads the Raybestos Rookie of the Year standings. But the former open-wheel superstar admitted that the learning curve has been steep.

"It's been a big transition," Montoya said. "There's been weeks where you get in the car, you're competitive, everything goes smooth. You're quick all week and I'm like, 'Man, this is good.' Next week it's like, 'What happened?' And with so many races, even when you run good and you know the cars and everything, you're going to have that and that's very new to me. It's very new
to me that there's so many races that it becomes a lot of points racing, and sometimes you forget that you've got to bring the car home. You get in little battles that you shouldn't. It's all about learning how far to go and learning the limits of everything, and that's been a big challenge to me."

Still, car owner Ganassi is more than satisfied.

"People have a lot of expectations with someone with the background that he has in racing and driving different vehicles and coming into NASCAR, and I would say that it's right on, if not a little bit ahead of our plan," Ganassi said. "People look and say, 'Gee, why did you qualify in the 20s or why do you finish 18th or something?' They don't think that that may be that good, relative to other series or relative to what people are used to. I'll point out to you that Juan finished 17th or 16th or something on the lead lap at Martinsville. And I'll tell you right now if you go over to that garage area and you ask anybody how (good) that is, they think that's a superhuman feat for the first time there.

"Now, is there a long way to go? Are we going to cover that ground? Yes," Ganassi said. "Are we happy where we're at? Yeah, but we have a long way to go, too, sure. … I think we've had a pretty good year so far with Juan. He's won in every car we've put him in this year and what better kind of a rookie year can you have? Started off in February with the 24 Hours of Daytona, he won a Busch race after that and he's won a Cup race. Our big push now is to get him to win on these ovals. If the year ended tomorrow, I'd say it was a great year."

For his part, Montoya is looking forward to seeing what happens this weekend in his first Brickyard NASCAR race.

"Once the race weekend starts, you get in, drive the car and see what happens," he said. "You cannot come into a place thinking, 'We're going to win this and this is awesome.' I'm the only driver to run three races here. I think when I'm 50, that's going to be a remarkable thing to remember, but today it's getting the job done."