Montoya has expertise on road course
SONOMA, Calif. - The first trip to Infineon Raceway was a pressure-packed, must-win race for Juan Pablo Montoya.
Since Montoya was considered one of the best road racers in the world, everyone in NASCAR knew it was his best opportunity to win in a stock car. He pulled it off, overcoming a horrible qualifying effort to drive through the field and win in 2007, his first season in NASCAR after jumping from Formula One.
Two years later, the urgency to win today’s race is gone for Montoya, replaced with an even bigger goal: making the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship.
That means Montoya, who is 14th in the standings and just 43 points away from claiming one of the 12 Chase spots, won’t push the limits in pursuit of a win. He’ll instead settle for a solid finish that improves his position in pursuit of the Chase.
Montoya will start 17th in today’s Toyota/Save Mart 350, but isn’t concerned about the traffic he’ll have to maneuver past on his way toward the front. He won from the 32d starting spot in 2007. He started 21st last year and finished sixth after he was spun by Marcos Ambrose while running second with roughly 20 laps to go.
He’s vowed to avoid placing himself in a similar situation today.
“I’m going to run hard. It’s just avoiding stupid mistakes, avoiding stupid wrecks,’’ he said. “A lot of people try to out-brake in the last corner here, but there is always people taken out and I was a victim of that [last year]. If you can avoid that somehow, then you have to.
“It doesn’t mean that you are not going to try to win, but the goal is that we have to try to make the Chase, and by trying to take the lead and spinning out and finishing 25th, at the end of the day we didn’t win and we lost points. If we stay in second and finish second, then we didn’t win, but we had a good points day.’’
Brian Vickers has the pole for the second straight week, edging defending Sonoma winner Kyle Busch with a lap at 93.678 m.p.h. Sprint Cup points leader Tony Stewart starts fourth and five-time Sonoma winner Jeff Gordon, second in points, has the 13th spot.
Taking a brief break from his Sprint Cup duties, Carl Edwards made the most of a one-day getaway, winning last night’s Nationwide series race at the Milwaukee Mile in West Allis, Wis.
Edwards’s victory in the NorthernTool.com 250 was his first Nationwide win this season. He took the lead from fellow Cup commuter Kyle Busch with 44 laps left and wasn’t significantly challenged the rest of the way. Edwards, who did his customary backflip on the frontstretch after winning last night, also won last year’s race at the Mile.
Busch finished second, followed by Brad Keselowski. 