Juan Pablo Montoya first hispanic to win in NASCAR Nextel Cup

[Elwood P Dowd]

He won a NASCAR Bush race in March, and today he won the Sonoma, California NASCAR Nextel Cup race. This guy has won in Formula One, Indy cars, and now NASCAR.

[A HERETIC I AM]

1. No surprise he won on a road course.

Montoya is good, and his abilities on a road course are evident. How long till he can win on an oval in a NEXTEL Cup car is what i am curious about.

[Elwood P Dowd]

2. He had a Top 5 finish at Atlanta I think.

The oval wins will probably come next year after he gains more experience.

[WinkyDink]

4. Oval?! Try the streets of Monte Carlo!

[Chemical Bill]

15. I remember an oval win somewhere in Indiana.

The NASCAR wins will come.

Bill

[Lugnut]

20. He is good

His win today was because of fuel strategy rather than having the best car. A win is a win regardless of how Juan got there but Robby Gordon had the best car and crappy fuel mileage. Congrats to JPM and the #42 team.

[WinkyDink]

3. Hahahaha!! Go, JPM!

It isn't the "Hispanic" factor that's noteworthy; it's that an F1 driver can just cross over and WIN!

[Elwood P Dowd]

5. Juan Pablo is not your typical F1 driver.

He has experience on ovals from his Indy car days. He is also not in it strictly for the money. As his car owner says, "Juan Pablo lives to race, while most drivers race to live". IOW, they're in it strictly for the money. Juan Pablo took a huge cut in pay, but he wanted some real racing other than the follow the leader F1 crap.

[WinkyDink]

9. Montoya left F1 because he wasn't winning there, and he knew NASCAR would be

easier pickings.

[Elwood P Dowd]

10. Well, he is 19th in the points standings

so it's not easier pickings.

Edit to add: Juan Pablo has raced for Chip Ganassi before and won the Indy 500 with him. Chip was one of the reasons JPM left Formula 1.

[Chemical Bill]

13. I don't think "easier pickings" is what he thought.

I think "more competition". He knew that F1 is lopsided, that one or two teams dominate. He knew he had no chance against the Ferraris, OK, the McLarens this year. NASCAR has more even racing (well, except for the bowtie domination. Is this the first Dodge win this year?). In F1, a world champion with the wrong car is just an also ran.

Then again, maybe he thought "steady job", and "no layoff".

Bill

[muriel_volestrangler]

23. Maybe losing to his teammate in 2005 and 2006 disappointed him

It may have made him think he'd lost his edge.

[AlinPA]

6. Side question : how do they know where to place the cars on restarts or

red flags after wrecks and heavy rain? Suppose that a driver was just be getting momentum and passing a bunch of cars when a wreck happens as one example.

[ConsAreLiars]

7. The tracks now have sensors that locate each car at the time a caution

or red flag is thrown. Before that they continued racing back to the finish line to determine restart positions, which occasionally turned out rather badly.

[AlinPA]

22. Thank you.

[Elwood P Dowd]

8. They have cameras and computers

When the yellow flag comes out, they have video of each car and it's position on the track at that very instant.

[AlinPA]

21. Thank you.

[bullwinkle428]

11. 2nd Non-American EVER to win in NASCAR! The first one was

apparently back in 1974, and he was from Canada...

Some real sour grapes comments afterwards from Robby Gordon, saying that he flat-out got lucky because of fuel economy strategy, but guess what - that's part of the game! Here's the world's smallest violin, playing just for you Robby! :nopity:

[SeattleGirl]

12. Robby is a first class whiner. Mind if I join in?

:nopity:

[bullwinkle428]

24. Ooh, another Robby Gordon tidbit I forgot to bring up -

recall a couple of years ago when Danica qualified on the front row at Indianapolis, and Gordon accused her of CHEATING because she weighs barely 100 lbs., which is probably 100 lbs. less than his ample posterior! Never mind that the rules stipulate a minimum weight for the car, not including the driver, but he couldn't get over that "unfair advantage" :eyes: that she supposedly had...

He really is the classic case of the performer with the million-dollar talent and the ten-cent brain!!

[Elwood P Dowd]

14. Typical of Robby

He is a helluva road racer though. Tony Stewart use to complain about drivers winning on fuel mileage, then he won Chicago on....... fuel mileage.

[Chemical Bill]

16. It's easy to hate Robbie...

but anybody who runs Dakar (let alone a stage winner) is tops in my book. I miss the time when Indy, NASCAR, F1 drivers, and dirt track drivers regularly faced each other in a variety of races. AJ raced at Le Mans, Indy, and Daytona, and Mario raced everywhere.

Besides, it's fun to watch Robbie throw his helmet.

Bill

[Elwood P Dowd]

17. He walked out on the track at New Hampshire and threw his helmet at Michael Waltrip's

car during a caution. That was funny. Mickey is a republican jerk and fundie fruit loop, so I had to laugh at that one.

[entanglement]

18. Good for him - his move to NASCAR from F1 seems to have paid off

[BlackVelvet04]

19. It was a fun race to watch.....

I just knew when he took the lead he wasn't going to pit. He had to be running on fumes when he crossed the finish line. Harvick sort of got sucked in to believing Montoya wouldn't make it on fuel and laid back a bit. I imagine he learned a hard lesson.

Great race and congrats to Juan Pablo Montoya.