Montoya’s message to open-wheelers: Don’t block the Cup guys
Quote selected text Published November 11th, 2007 in NASCAR News
Juan Montoya warned fellow open wheel drivers that qualifying was easy, and the race will be much harder today at Phoenix. “It’s a tough race. You can get a lap down here so fast. Once you get a lap down, it’s downhill from there.”
Montoya, who’s 20th in the Nextel Cup standings with a victory, said it’s going to be difficult for Hornish, Villeneuve and Carpentier to stay out of the way of the contenders and avoid holding them up. He advised against blocking.
“They can move you [out of the way] pretty easy, as well,” said Montoya. “That’s the problem. I think, when you run a lot of open wheel, people are used to holding people off. Here it just doesn’t work, and if you hold off the wrong person, he’ll wreck you. It’s pretty hard.”
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That’s the smartest thing he’s ever said! Now he just needs to do it himself.
who is that idiot to say anything!! he still gets in the way !!!!!! i hope all the open wheel drivers crash!!!they need to go back to there own sport, not come into ours!!!
open wheelers like to race not play follow the leader for 4 hours
I agree with Ken. About time someone knocked some sense into Montoya. He has been doing much better with staying out of peoples way and when to race hard and when to let people go.
Jim - When have you seen open wheelers passing? IRL yes but its a few guys who are far better than 75% of the field. Certainly its not the F1 guys.
I agree with Ken. Montoya is finally starting to realize when to race hard and when to let people go.
Jim - What open wheel races are you watching? IRL has a few guys who are so much better than anyone else that they race among themselves. Those guys race. The rest just ride around. When is the last time you saw a pass in an F1 race not counting in the pits?
Amen to that, Ken. Why doesn’t he practice what he preaches? We don’t need a foreign Tony Stewart. The American one is bad enough.
All that being said, as much as I dislike JPM, he has earned my respect. When he isn’t racing dirty, he is a very great driver and seemed to transition from F1 pretty well. I wouldn’t be surprised if he is in the Chase next season.
Once an open wheel driver wins a race based on MERIT and not gas-mileage in NASCAR… I’ll pay attention.
Until that day comes? Their talent is being put to waste in a stock-car.
That’s all.
Sorry Katelyn , Montoya has said himself that a Cup car is much harder to drive than an open wheel Indy type car. I guess that shoots down the “wasting talent” theory.
I think it is pretty cool that some really good drivers have an alternative to retirement. Once you pass your prime in open wheel you can go to nascar. It is a pretty smart comment that Montoya does make, if someone lacks the talent to pass cleanly then they just smash in to you and crash you out of the way.
Montoya has said a lot of things–that doesn’t mean anything.
When our sport is being over-taken by guys who were more than content in their series… doing well, winning races, etc. etc… then those guys come into NASCAR and take rides from guys in the Busch and Truck series who are MORE than deserving… that’s some BS.
I live in Charlotte so I know my fair-share of guys who race and I cannot tell you HOW MANY GUYS I know that have gotten booted from truck and busch rides because the owner tells them that “there isn’t room to move them up” … why? f-ing open-wheeled _______ take their rides.
Stay in the sport that you prospered in.
And unless you know some of the guys that are getting screwed over by owners, you have no room to talk. This sport is just getting pretty ridiculous. I’m majoring in Motorsports Management and sometimes I even wonder why I would want to work for a sport so stuck up their own ass. Well, Brian France in particular–along with Bruton Smith to some degree… Whatever, this sport is just getting too “set-in-stone”, if you will. Too many rules, too many procedures… It’s a waste. I swear every week when I’m picking my fantasy picks for the race, I pick one of the guys who is going to win because there is no element of surprise anymore with who will win. I remember Kansas of ‘04 when Nemechek won–THAT was a great race and a GREAT surprise. These days it’s either Johnson, Gordon, or Stewart running up front, winning the races–with the occasional Kenseth, Edwards, Hamlin, etc. thrown in there.
Paaaatheetic.
stay in the sport you prospered in….haha…. now thats funny. one of the greatest drivers of all time mario andretti didnt stay, and he is one of the greats. look at alms, le mans, grand am. those guys can race. scott pruett is doing great. montoya did well there. dtm in germany is one of the hardest series in the world. even f1 guys that retire have a hard time. so to the stay in your own realm..thats funny. a great racer isnt just the guy that wins time after time in his own sport, but can migrate and make it in other sports. i can give props to jeff or jimmie for their win in the roc, but other than that, look at the others, they just dont really seem up to spec. even when swapping paint came on, montoya and jeff did the swap and they both had a hard time. a great driver learns, adapt and wins. simple put.
Well James, I haven’t seen Juan Pablo “adapt”
If Ganassi had set the learning curve for the cup series as high as every OTHER owner with drivers that they move up from truck and busch, JPM would have long been gone by now.
He runs up front SOMEWHAT but he also WRECKS everydamn guy in the field on weekends where he’s not running top 10. Very rarely will you see him run top 5 on an oval unless he didn’t pit or just took 2 tires, gas only, etc.
So to say that the likes of Juan Pablo, Carpentier, Villenueve, etc. are going to “tear up the series” …. hahaha that’s about preposterous.
And to bring in drivers such as Pruett who only race in NASCAR when we go to a freaking ROAD COURSE… haha, that’s a little irrelevant, wouldn’t ya say???
Well said, James. In my mind the greatest drivers were the ones that could switches series and be competitive… the Andrettis, the Unsers, the Foyts of the racing world. Geez, look at Foyt… 4 time Indy 500 winner, Daytona 500 winner, 24 hours of LeMans winner, 2 time 24 of Daytona winner, IROC winner… put him in it and he could win. Or look at a Michael Shumacher who climbs aboard a motoGP bike for the second time in his life and turns laps within a few secs of the lap record. Or Rossi doing the same with an F1 car. These guys ARE the best of the best and they deserve to race anything an owner is willing to let them drive. If a driver in another series, even if it is a support or development series, can’t make the move up, well, that’s the way it goes. Like it or not, racing is a business and an owner is going to go with the driver that he perceives to be the best deal. And I’m not even sure why you would care, Katelyn, if, as you say, “this sport is just getting pretty ridiculous.” BTW, I do agree with you on that… NASCAR has become pretty f’ed up.
Finally… he woke up and smelled the coffee beans!
May be the open wheel drivers show a bit more maturity and adaptability as drivers than most of the current nascar feeder devisions. With the COT why not go with open wheel drivers as everyone needs to adapt to the new car.
gentrification is due to popularity! NASCAR is popular it is going to draw racers from everywhere!
JPM is good driver and will most likely be rookie of the year!
As long as nascar is driven by the sponsors there will never again be room for a really great race car driver unless he’s marketable and lets face it most great drivers could care less what anyone thinks of them their there to win but cant get a good enough ride to even keep up so we are stuck with young punks that wouldnt know racing if it slapped them in the face