Misfortune spoiling Montoya's season
Kenny Bruce
Kenny Bruce is a three-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association's George Cunningham Writer of the Year Award. He joined Street & Smith's Sports Group in 2001.
TALLADEGA, Ala. – The speed is there. The cars are capable. The results have yet to reflect that, however.
“I think first of all, we’ve got to stop wrecking,” says Juan Pablo Montoya, who has failed to finish two of this year’s eight races. “I haven’t screwed up yet, and you’ve got to count that I’m going to screw up at least twice.
“We’ve been involved in wrecks where I’ve been trying to avoid them and there’s nowhere to go. I’m sure my screw-up will come soon as well.”
It’s unlikely that Montoya’s top-10 finishes at Daytona, Atlanta and Phoenix have surprised anyone. But who would have thought the Earnhardt Ganassi driver would have an average finishing position of 34th in the other five races completed this year?
He’s 24th in points, and while there’s still time to regroup and contend for one of this year’s 12 Chase For The Sprint Cup slots, Montoya knows time’s becoming an issue.
“I think I’ve led five or six races this year,” he says. “It’s crazy. We have three finishes [that were] two top-fives and a top-10. Everything else … should have been a top-10. We’ve had the cars to do it, but you’ve got to have the luck to get the results. It’s kind of frustrating.”
It’s given him an idea, he says, of what fellow driver Kyle Busch went through last year when the Joe Gibbs driver won races but failed to make the Chase.
“I don’t think it’s over yet,” Montoya says. “We just have to keep working on it and see what happens.”
Forget those who say the Chase field is pretty much determined after the season’s sixth, seventh or eighth races. Last year, five drivers – Mark Martin, Brian Vickers, Ryan Newman, Montoya and Greg Biffle – were outside the top 12 heading into the spring race at Talladega. Yet all five were inside the top 12 in points when the Chase field was finally decided.
Montoya reeled off 10 top-10s through the summer to climb into contention a year ago. “On a good week,” he says, “We could finish ninth.
“Now, a good race [is when] you can fight for wins, an average race we’re 10th,” he says. “ It makes the points situation a little different, but nevertheless, to be … in the Chase, you’ve got to be up front every week.”
