David Gilliland parked after tagging Juan Pablo Montoya
FORT WORTH, Texas - David Gilliland swore that he didn’t mean to tag Juan Pablo Montoya on lap 263 of the Dickies 500, but that didn’t mean that NASCAR didn’t penalize him.
NASCAR parked Gilliland after the accident, which left Montoya fuming and with a torn-up race car.
Gilliland didn’t tear up his race car, but NASCAR sat him for the rest of the race leaving him in 42nd while Montoya was 43rd.
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Director John Darby said there will be no further penalties although both drivers likely will be talked to again prior to practice at Phoenix informing them not to keep the feud going on the race track.
Montoya and Gilliland agree that Montoya had bumped Gilliland at least once prior to the accident, where Montoya was underneath Gilliland and Gilliland swerved down with his left front turning Montoya in the right rear.
“I had a good run off the corner and he runs me to the wall,” Montoya said. “I did all I could, but I still hit the wall. So I went into [Turn] 1 and just hit him a little bit to say, ‘Hey, I was there.’ Know what I mean?
“It was like he said, ‘I’m better than him, so I’m going to wreck him.’ The decent thing is not doing it, but if I had wrecked him, it would have been fine. It’s frustrating when people do things like that.”
Montoya had been running in the top 10 most of the day and was on the lead lap at the time his day ended.
“My spotter said I was clear,” Gilliland said. “I kind of slid up in front of him and he jacked my rear wheels off the ground going down the back straightaway and then got into me again going into turn 1 and 2 and jacked me way up the track.
“I was trying to let him go and got a good run off the corner and just kind of misjudged it coming down across him. I was going to let him go, so I feel real bad for those guys.”
Gilliland and Montoya have been involved together in other crashes this year.
“It’s a shame that it happened,” Gilliland said. “I hate that Juan’s got a tore-up race car. … It’s a disappointing end for both of us.”
It was incredibly frustrating as well as disappointing for Montoya who said his earlier bump was partially because Gilliland was “running like 50 laps behind.”
“He came out of [Turn] 4 and just wrecked us,” Montoya said. “It’s very disappointing. It has been great for everybody at Ganassi. We’ve got great cars now. It’s just frustrating to have that happen.”
