Casually making history
SONOMA, Calif. – Considering that Infineon Raceway is in the middle of wine country, the nail-biting finish in Sunday's Toyota/Save Mart 350 was enough to lead a lot of folks to drink – most notably Juan Pablo Montoya, team owner Chip Ganassi and crew chief Donnie Wingo.
As each closing circuit in the 110-lap event wound down with Montoya on the verge of running out of fuel, the question became whether those members of the No. 42 team ultimately would drink in frustration of going dry before the finish line or click glasses in celebration.
In the end, there was no whine but lots of wine as Montoya passed Jamie McMurray with seven laps to go and then proceeded to give all his new peers on the Nextel Cup circuit a first-hand lesson in how to conserve fuel en route to collecting his first career Nextel Cup victory.
In so doing, Montoya – in just his 17th Cup start after coming to NASCAR from Formula One – joins Mario Andretti and Dan Gurney as the only drivers in motorsports history to win races in the highest levels of stock car racing, U.S. open wheel racing (CART, Champ Car or Indy Racing League) and F1.
Montoya's reaction to joining such an elite group? No big deal.
"I love racing, but i really don't follow records that much," said Montoya, who did describe the victory as being among the biggest in his career. "As long as I keep winning, I'm happy with that."
But Sunday's win was much more than that: it was yet another verification of Montoya's immense talent and expansive versatility as a race car driver, something he's shown on virtually every level since he began racing in his native Colombia more than 20 years ago.
While some may say Montoya likes competition, it's more than that: he likes testing himself, over and over. First, it was open wheel racing in the U.S. Next, it was in Formula One.
Not surprisingly, he passed those tests quite nicely.
And when Ganassi and Montoya first started talking last year about what might sound like a crazy idea, Montoya's take indeed was surprising: he not only was up for the challenge, he welcomed it.
"The guy just likes the action," Ganassi said with a smile. "A week or so ago, he was at Eldora (Tony Stewart's charity race in Eldora, Ohio) in a dirt car. How many people have been on the Eldora dirt and on the streets of Monte Carlo?
"That just tells you the guy has the disease, he's got the fever, he likes the action. That's what's fun about working with him. It's not about Hollywood, it's not about the money, it's about the action. It's easy to work hard for a guy like that."
That relentless pursuit of action and constant need to reinvent himself as a successful racer in every circuit he competes in has been Montoya's trademark ever since the first time he climbed behind the wheel of a race car.
He progressed up every step of the racing ladder, and even when critics doubted his ability, that doubt only served to inspire and light a fire under him.
It's almost as if is saddled with one of the biggest inferiority complexes in the world. He can't help but strive for success and greatness. Like Ganassi said, it's been an addiction for years, but a sweet addiction at that.
"In open wheel, that's what I was meant to be winning. In stock cars, I wasn't," Montoya said. "To get our first win here is huge."
By joining Gurney and Andretti in the most elite group in motorsports history, he can claim something that famed four-wheel luminaries like former F1 foe Michael Schumacher, open wheel legend A.J. Foyt, and even four-time Indianapolis 500 winner Rick Mears can't.
That's not an opinion, it's a fact steeped in end results, an almost Midas-like presence that everything he touches – or every steering wheel, in this case – eventually turns golden.
"(Montoya's) just like what we all expected him to be," said runner-up Kevin Harvick. "He's talented and extremely aggressive."
What makes Sunday’s win all that more unique is that with as much as has been said about Montoya's open wheel reputation as an overaggressive driver, the kind of guy who would punt his mother off the race track if she was the one thing standing between him and the finish line, he won his first stock car race in a genteel, almost gentlemanly fashion.
"One of the nice things working with him again is he's matured in a way as a race driver that you could not write in a movie," Ganassi said. "He's changed quite a bit and is a lot calmer, if you can imagine that. It's surprising."
No more surprising than when Montoya came on the radio early in Sunday's race and professed "It's a little too early to race these guys."
Ganassi was stunned.
"I looked at Wingo and Wingo looked at me and I was looking around, wondering if I was listening to someone else's radio or something," Ganassi said. "I didn't know who the hell that was. He's a changed man, all in a positive way."
About the only thing on four wheels that Montoya hasn't won with is a dragster. But at 31, don't be surprised if he someday takes on the challenge of the NHRA, as well – just for kicks, if nothing else. Think of it: Montoya in one lane and John Force in the other.
Hey, stranger things have happened. How many people a year ago would have believed that the former Indianapolis 500 and Grand Prix of Monaco winner someday would not only race in NASCAR, but win in it?
"I've managed to succeed in everything I've done and the team realizes that and we want to keep winning," Montoya said. "Success is here, that's the reason Chip hired me, and he's the same way I am: he wants to win as bad as I do. We're going in the right direction. It just takes time."
While Sunday's victory came on Montoya's specialty of road courses, it was a win nonetheless. That it came in something other than an open wheel car made the post-victory taste of wine all that much sweeter.
Even after being spun out by Montoya earlier in the race, fellow competitor Kurt Busch readily recognized the significance of what Montoya did Sunday: "We got tagged in Turn 11 by Montoya, a Formula One winner and now a NASCAR winner," Busch said. "That doesn't happen every day."
It did Sunday.