Let's be clear about one thing: Juan Pablo Montoya deserved the hype. In the whole history of NASCAR, no driver ever entered his rookie season with such well-established credentials. This is a man, after all, who won the 1999 CART championship in his rookie season; a man who won the 2000 Indianapolis 500 in his first race at the Brickyard; a man who, in five full seasons on the Formula One circuit, won seven races, including the series' premier event, the Monaco Grand Prix. He knows how to drive. And he knows how to win.
So how in the world can he be a non-factor in the chase for the Nextel Cup? There were encouraging signs from him early on, including a fifth-place run at Atlanta on March 18. But last Sunday at Michigan, when he finished dead last after crashing out less than halfway into the race, Montoya fell two spots in the Cup standings to 23rd, more than 1,000 points behind leader Jeff Gordon. In his last eight races, Montoya hasn't run better than 20th, and his average finish this season is a lowly 24.2. Yes, he's the top-ranked rookie driver in the sport, but that fact doesn't mean that '07 hasn't been a tremendous disappointment.
The problem isn't that Montoya suddenly turned into a bad driver. The problem is that he and his team at Chip Ganassi Racing are struggling to break through against NASCAR's superpowers. Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing simply outclass every other operation in the sport in terms of money and resources. Equipment tests are enormously important, and the outfits at Hendrick and Gibbs do more of it -- and generate more data from it -- than anybody else in NASCAR. In his entire career, Montoya has never been as much of an underdog as he is right now.
Nowhere has this been more evident than with the Car of Tomorrow, which Montoya's team has been unable to master. Whatever setup information he and crew chief Donnie Wingo learned from their preseason, the CoT testing hasn't worked, and the two men so far have failed to contrive an antidote to the trouble. In six CoT races, Montoya has cracked the top 20 only once, and has finished outside of the top 30 on three occasions, including his run at Dover three weeks ago. If the No. 42 Dodge always seems to be running in the back of the pack in those races, it's because Montoya is driving a poor-handling car, one that isn't as balanced in traffic, and that doesn't glide as smoothly around corners, as the rock-solid Chevys from Hendrick and Gibbs.
If there's a chance for Montoya to break through this season, it will be on Sunday at Infineon. The road course there is something he's very comfortable with, having done so much road racing during his open-wheel career. Everybody in NASCAR got a glimpse of his immense potential back in March, when he won the Busch Series event at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City. On that day, he charged from 21st to first in the final 27 laps to take the checkered flag, an epic run that was perhaps the most stirring move in NASCAR so far this year.
Unfortunately for Montoya, Sunday's race is also a CoT event. But if he's ever going to get past his problems with the car, it's going to be -- it has to be -- at Infineon.
How to Drive ...
Second-year driver J.J. Yeley talks about what he learned from his first run at Infineon, in 2006:
"Last year, I got a little bit nauseous behind the wheel because of some of the elevation changes. Being a racecar driver and having motion sickness is kind of a funny thing to talk about. I suffered from it last year and it definitely wasn't pretty. We also did some things with pit strategy that we might want to look at differently [this year]. It's a different racetrack. You have to drive it so much differently than what you think when you see it on TV. It looks like a fast racetrack, and once you're behind the wheel, it's much tighter and technical and a lot slower. You need to exercise a lot of patience ... It comes down to the car. If you have a good-handling car, it's going to make a world of difference. But the same drivers are always at the front at a road course race, whether it's Jeff Gordon or Tony Stewart, Kurt Busch or Robby Gordon. It's a matter of understanding what you need to do to get the car to turn so you can get in the throttle faster. A lot of it is being really smooth with the racecar and some of it just happens with guys with experience. To watch Robby Gordon, it's amazing to watch him run at Infineon. He's on the edge there and he's always fast. It's a matter of car control and knowing what you can do there. A lot of approaches work on the road courses, but it's a matter of trying to keep that track position and staying out front of anyone."
• 5: Number of wins for Jeff Gordon at Infineon Raceway.
• 2: Number of wins at Infineon from the next 11 drivers in the Nextel Cup points standings. Tony Stewart, who's currently in seventh-place, has reached Victory Lane there in '01 and '05.
• 4: Number of winners in the last nine races at Infineon. The drivers are: Jeff Gordon (five wins), Tony Stewart, (two), Robby Gordon (one) and Ricky Rudd (one).
• 6: Number of career top-10 finishes in Cup competition for driver Boris Said.
• 3: Number of career top-10 finishes at Infineon for Boris Said.
June 25, 2006 After announcing his engagement to model Ingrid Vandebosch, Jeff Gordon wins the Dodge/Save Mart 350, his fifth victory at the track and the 74th of his career. (On Wednesday, the couple welcomed a daughter into the world, little Ella Sofia.)
