He’s making the Chase look easy

Montoya made his name as an open-wheel driver, winning the CART points title in 1999, the Indianapolis 500 the following year, then jumping to Formula One and taking the checkered flag seven times in six seasons, including the prestigious Monaco Grand Prix in 2003. He switched to stock cars three years ago, and having success in NASCAR, while not a given, is obviously what Montoya expected, so forgive him if he’s not throwing a party over simply qualifying for the opportunity to win the season points championship. The 10-race playoffs start Sunday at the Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon.

“It’s weird. We work all year for this, and I should be really pumped up and excited,’’ Montoya said after last Saturday night’s race in Richmond. “Right now I’m just thinking about how we need to run better next week.

“We’re pretty close. We’ve been pretty good every week. So, I don’t know. We’ll see.’’

Montoya might not be overwhelmed with his achievement, but others are, especially those who have similar open-wheel backgrounds.

“If there’s any guy that could come from an open-wheel car and do well here, it’s Juan, because he’s got so much natural ability,’’ said the appropriately named Scott Speed, who is participating in his first full Sprint Cup season after two years in Formula One. “He’s got experience on ovals - he raced Champ Cars on ovals, raced open-wheel cars on ovals before. I was on my way to having a pretty good open-wheel career and switched course really soon, where he had already kind of finished a whole career before he started this one. Honestly, if anyone in F1 would have picked a guy to come over here and be successful, they would have picked Juan, for sure.’’

It’s still racing, but comparing Formula One to NASCAR is like comparing a Pinto to a Porsche. Sure, each model has four tires, a steering wheel, brakes, and an engine, but everything else - from the exterior body to the interior makeup - is different. Similarly, switching from one kind of racing series to another takes an adjustment period, and time to get a feel for how the new machine handles, reacts, and operates.

“There’s really nothing that you do that’s similar,’’ said Sam Hornish Jr., a former open-wheel star who won three Indy Racing League titles, captured the Indianapolis 500 in 2006, and is in his second full Sprint Cup season. “These cars, you drive them as much with your feet as you do with your hands. How you brake the car, how you put the throttle back down, the amount of weight that you transfer to either the front wheels or the back wheels, to keep it turning, to not be too loose when you get it back on the throttle. It takes so much time to be able to learn the differences and how to make the car do what you want it to do.’’

Montoya, who drives the No. 42 Chevrolet sponsored by Target, agrees.

“Saving the car and the brakes and the tires, I’m not used to that,’’ he said. “A lot of people are giving you advice: ‘Don’t use the car so hard’; ‘Try to go as fast as you can without abusing the car.’ There’s weeks where it really clicks and you wonder, ‘Why am I passing people so easy and I’m not even trying?’ But then if you try, you probably run slower and kill the tires. It’s a really fine balance.’’

Almost everyone struggles at first, but Montoya is showing that his learning curve maybe isn’t as steep. He won on the Sprint Cup circuit in just his 17th start - the June race at Sonoma, Calif., two years ago - was named rookie of the year in 2007, and now has qualified for his first Chase in only his third season.

“You can’t come here thinking you are going to run [poorly]. You can’t. If I came here thinking I’m going to run 20th every week, I shouldn’t even think about making the move,’’ Montoya said. “I came here thinking I can win, and I knew where the team was when we got here. We’ve done what we had to do to prove people wrong. I don’t think anybody expected us to be as competitive as we are, so it’s nice to see.’’

Montoya hasn’t been able to find Victory Lane since Sonoma two summers ago, but he’s getting the hang of contending week after week and collecting top-10 finishes. He placed a season-best second at Pocono last month, took third in Atlanta two weeks ago, has led in six races, and has 12 top-10s in 26 starts.

That kind of consistency - and avoiding any early exits and the title-crushing finishes they produce - could give Montoya an opportunity in the Chase. Up first is Loudon, and a track that hasn’t been kind to the Colombian, who was born in Bogota. In five starts at NHMS, he’s never finished better than 12th, and that came this past June, when rain interrupted the good run he was having.

“We should run good there. We have a new car for there, so hopefully it runs a little better than before,’’ Montoya said. “We made [the Chase], we were good enough to be there, and we showed everybody we had the potential. At this point, I think we’ve got a car fast enough to go far. We’ll see.’’

Sunday might be the perfect day for Montoya to earn his first victory of the season and show that he’s a serious threat to win the Chase. He turns 34 Sunday, so throwing a party, no matter the result, could be in order. Especially if it comes with a victory present.

Michael Whitmer can be reached at mwhitmer@globe.com