Sports

Juan Pablo Montoya! It’s time for a win…and why didn’t NASCAR take him to Mexico City again?

Juan Pablo Montoya and his wife Connie
(Photo by Jason Smith/Getty Images for NASCAR)

By Mike Mulhern

To translate this web page into Spanish click Here

DARLINGTON, S.C.
¡hey, Juan Pablo! ¿cómo es la vida? ¡El parecer bueno!
Yessiree, after that close second at Talladega a few days ago, suddenly Juan Pablo Montoya finds himself back in the limelight. Not only that, but he and new crew chief Jimmy Elledge left Alabama 12th in the Sprint Cup standings….which, if the two can keep up that pace, would put them in the Sprint Cup championship hunt this fall.
Well, it probably won’t go down that way, because team owner Chip Ganassi and the Dodge guys are still struggling for championship-level consistency, and that crash-and-32nd at Richmond didn’t do anything good for their average.
Still, the idea of Juan Pablo Montoya in the running for the NASCAR championship is very intriguing.
And stranger things have happened lately on the stock car trail.
Maybe NASCAR execs should have hauled Montoya and Company back down to Mexico City a few weeks ago for that big soirée.

Kyle Busch, now an international star, with his Mexico City victory
(Photo by Jeff Gross/Getty Images)

Robbie Weiss, NASCAR’s international boss, puts the spin on it: “An impressive run in Mexico City by (winner) Kyle Busch, and it was a nice finish from the international perspective, with Marcos Ambrose (from Australia) in second and Patrick Carpentier (from Montreal) in fifth, and with Carl Edwards up there too…..
“It was a long race, with a lot of cautions, because everyone was trying to win that thing. It was a battle to the finish. You can’t argue you had to fight to win that one; it wasn’t just follow-the-leader.
“And Boris Said (who had some angry words about Ambrose after their crash) is such a mild guy usually, that when he gets that animated, he really means it. So that was some great racing…and made for a great story line.”
Still…"You could clearly tell from the main grandstands that there were some empty seats, compared to other years,” Weiss concedes. “But if you looked around the track at other parts, the promoter said it was solid. Maybe 50,000 people altogether. That’s a little off from other years, but still a nice crowd, a good atmosphere, and from the corporate side, it was pretty good.
“There is a lot of work still to be done, to build our presence in that market. Overall we left a little disappointed, in that we’d like to see record attendance each year…but it was a good, safe race, and a decent crowd.”
With a city of 25 million, how do you market Mexico City? Particularly considering the demographics of the traditional racing crowd.
“It’s a challenge,” Weiss says. “We can frame it—when we take the Corona series to smaller states in Mexico, it’s a lot easier to make a product noise and reach a lot of people.
“In Mexico City we can bang our drum very loudly and it’s still hard to be heard.

Connie Montoya and Sebastian Montoya, wife and son of Juan Pablo Montoya
(Photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)

“But from having been down there for a lot of events, from the NFL-ABC days and Champ-car days, the nice thing about our NASCAR events is you see a much different blend of people in the crowd. Even in Montreal too, our race crowd is much different than the Formula One crowd.
“Our events are not isolated to just one group of demographics. You still get the upper market but you also get the masses, the working class people and their families, more so than at other events. And yet you still get the racing enthusiasts and the Who’s-Who of Mexico.
“How do you market that event in Mexico City? It’s very tough. I can tell you that any given weekend in Mexico City there is a lot going on. Just like in Boston, New York, LA, any big city.

“But we do a pre-sell with the credit card company Banamex; tickets to a lot of events in Mexico are packaged by sponsors, who can then reach out to their own consumers.
“So you can see particular sections, like the Corona section. That’s very traditional in the Mexican market.”
The date of NASCAR’s Mexico City event – early spring right now – could just as easily be early fall, if that might help marketing. NASCAR’s Mexico Corona national tour, the 14-race series at 11 tracks, including three brand new speedways, concludes with its championship event at Mexico City’s Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in late November.

Juan Pablo Montoya’s big smile has become familiar in the NASCAR garage
(Photo by Todd Warshaw/Getty Images for NASCAR)

So what is NASCAR thinking about its Mexico City promotion? “There are three things required,” Weiss says.
“One, to continue putting a good product on the track, like we are.
“Second, to have patience. We’re only four years in. We did not exist in the Mexican market.
“And third, the date we’ve chose, early-season, plays well, particularly for the promoter. And I don’t think changing the date would have that much of an impact on a market like that. When you go to a major market like that, the impact changes from year to year, because it depends on rival entertainment options.”

Is this how to tango? Juan Pablo Montoya dancing with Heather Kensal
(Photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)

NASCAR and Ocesa, it’s Mexican promoter, do bring in some celebrities, for fan impact. “But we feel that the field of drivers is key,” Weiss says. “The Nationwide regulars and international specialist and local (Mexican) racers – like Adrian Fernandez…and Antonio Perez, who is driving for a team sponsored by one of the biggest soccer clubs in the country: that’s going to be a neat deal over time, because there is such a massive, massive following in the United States and Mexico. That’s a story line to keep your eye on.”
Indeed, Perez just took his second career NASCAR win last weekend at the sport’s new San Luis Potosi oval.
“There’s always more we need to do and should do. But we’ve got good partners, with ESPN and Ocesa,” Weiss says.

Robbie Weiss, NASCAR’s head of international operations
(Photo credit: NASCAR)

Meanwhile, on the other side of NASCAR Hispanic initiative, Montoya has become the kingpin…though between last summer’s Sonoma win and his strong runner-up run at Talladega two weeks ago he hadn’t shown that much.
But that Talladega run and a string of consistent finishes (an average 18.4 finish, dragged down by his 32nd at Richmond and a 32nd at Daytona) have him looking at a possible playoff spot, if he can make the top-12 by the September cutoff. Dropping Daytona and Richmond, Montoya has been a 15th-place finisher, not bad for early in his second season on the tour.
But still not good enough, not for a Formula One star.
So car owner Chip Ganassi swapped crew chiefs and brought over Jimmy Elledge, to try to add some spark to the Montoya camp.

Let’s see, Juan Pablo drives the black car…and the yellow car….and the red car……
Juan Pablo Montoya at Phoenix
(Photo by Jeff Gross/Getty Images)

Montoya, with a carefree spirit, that borders on nonchalance, nevertheless chaffs when pressed about his long doldrums.
Does Montoya think he can win a championship right now? “Somebody would be dreaming if somebody tells me that,” Montoya says with a laugh. “As a company we’re getting better. I think we need a little bit more time.”
And as a driver? “I think I’m pretty good. I still got to learn a little bit, to understand what the car needs. But that’s part of the whole experience.
“I think the racing part I’m pretty good at. I think it’s more ‘Do I need a track bar adjustment? Do I want to pull a spring rubber out? Is it the wedge? Is it the track bar on the left or right?’
“It’s all kinds of things.
“When the car is really good, then it’s very easy to adjust like that. But when the car is bad, it’s very hard to decide which is the worst pick.”
So his NASCAR learning curve has been erratic, not unexpected for a guy, however talented, coming over from light-weight, lithe open-wheel cars.
“I thought the first part went pretty smooth…but the last bit has been pretty hard,” Montoya says. “To get good every week is really hard. It’s not only myself, it’s the entire team.
“We’ve been really consistent; that’s really key for our team. Pretty much every race we’ve had a top-20 finish. Talladega was a really good weekend for us.
“But being realistic, to make the chase, you have to run a little bit better. We’re running average maybe 12th to 15th -place. If we could run closer to the 10s, then we could probably get into the chase.”

And when the smoke cleared….Kyle Busch celebrates with his crew after winning NASCAR’s Mexico City race
(Photo by Jeff Gross/Getty Images)

The length of NASCAR races, typically close to four hours, hasn’t been an issue for Montoya. “I don’t mind it. It’s pretty good because you have all that time to work on the car and make it better.
“It’s frustrating when you have a really good car to start with, and sometimes you can only make it worse. Those are the kind races that want to make them short. Martinsville and Bristol are the worst ones: you run three cautions and look up and you’ve done 80 laps – “Okay, only 420 to go.’ That’s pretty hard.”
And then there’s the Ganassi factor. His second season as car owner in NASCAR, 2002, was fantastic…right up till the moment Sterling Marlin crashed in September at Richmond, while leading the NASCAR Cup tour standings. Marlin crashed again three weeks later in Kansas City, a significant neck injury was discovered, and he had to sit out the rest of the season. Marlin had led the tour standings for 25 weeks that season but was out of the hunt down the stretch.
Since that season Ganassi has tried a number of options, changes, driver swaps, crew chiefs, everything he could think of. But so far little has worked. Or at least little has worked consistently.
Now newcomer Dario Franchitti is sidelined with a broken ankle, and Reed Sorenson, the third man on the Ganassi team, in his third season on the tour, is still struggling (averaging a 28th place finish so far this year).
So Montoya may have to carry the freight.

Mexico City is now one of NASCAR’s new international markets
(Photo credit: Autostock)

And the sense has been that Montoya is better than the cars he’s been given to race. How much better is the question.
“It drives all of us nuts,” Montoya says. “We all want to do really good in NASCAR. Chip’s a guy who has won pretty much everything. He’s been close to winning here before. But we’re not going to win overnight. It’s all about a process.”
However this is Ganassi’s eighth season in NASCAR….
Montoya is sometimes hard to read, perhaps simply because he is so talented. How much fire is there here? That’s hard to gauge.
But with his run at Talladega as perhaps a new benchmark, Montoya is no longer under the radar.
Do you want to win a championship in NASCAR? “Of course,” Montoya snaps. “Do you think I came here for holidays?
“Of course you want to win races. If I didn’t think I could every week come out here have a chance at winning, I shouldn’t even show up.
“Right now we can just do with what we got and do as good as we are. You cannot expect to go ‘We’re 12th now, so we need to run in the top-10 every week.’

Juan Pablo Montoya (left) and Adrian Fernandez at Mexico City’s Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez
(Photo Credit: Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images for NASCAR)

“We haven’t run in the top-10 but once this year. All of a sudden are we going to run in the top-10 every week? No, that’s not going to happen.
“It’s not going to happen overnight because we finished second in Talladega.
“We just have to make it a little bit better.
“And making the chase is more about everyone else making mistakes and us being consistent.
“Last year we were better than we expected. And we want to run better, and we are: last year we were running mid-20s, now we’re running mid-teens. But Talladega was the only time we really had a shot at winning. I hope we have some more.”

Juan Pablo Montoya (42) chasing Kyle Busch down the stretch at Talladega
(Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

Elledge, who has been around this sport since he was a kid (his father is engine building veteran Terry Elledge), thus now carries the burden of getting Montoya back into victory lane somewhere, hopefully on an oval.
“Chip is looking for better results. It’s basically just a chemistry change, to shake everything up. The teams are the same, it’s just a different driver-crew chief,” Elledge says of the swap.
“Both of these teams have been together five or six years, and we know each other, the teams are real parallel in the way we do things. But who’s to say relationships don’t just sometimes get stale….and that we need to do something just get the guys excited again. Everyone does it at times, Roush, Childress, Hendrick….”
But what’s been the basic problem at Ganassi’s for so many seasons? Money isn’t an issue, personnel doesn’t seem an issue. Technology? Application? Chemistry? Is there something technical missing?
“We probably haven’t been quite up to speed on testing, and we’re seeing the effects of that, but we’re going in the right direction, and eventually it all comes into the system and becomes speed.

Jimmy Elledge, new crew chief for Juan Pablo Montoya
(Photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)

“But this stuff is hard. It doesn’t take much….look at Jeff Gordon at Texas: he wins a race and then can’t even drive his car the next race, on a similar track. And Jimmie Johnson at Las Vegas – Jeff ran so well (going for the win in the final miles when he crashed) but Jimmie got lapped three times. It’s such a fine line with this new car, and we’re all still getting used to it.
“This car-of-tomorrow is just so different, because it doesn’t have the downforce. The way this car is right now, a little gain can be dramatic.
Perhaps it’s just the drivers need to get fired up again. When Montoya broke into this sport, he was full of fire, making dramatic moves, making things happen. But only rarely has he shown that feistiness, since his Sonoma win last summer.
Elledge, after spending nearly two weeks now with Montoya, probing his mind, senses part of the issue is getting Montoya more confident in the equipment:
“I don’t think Juan has lost any fire or passion about racing. When I talk to him, it’s he doesn’t want to run 15th or 20th; he’s frustrated by that. He’s not satisfied with that. And when you can’t get past that, when you can’t reach your next level, that’s a big letdown.
“I’m still new in this and we’re just trying to get through the next month and see what we need to do; we’re obviously putting a lot into our road course stuff. We’ll be up at VIR (just north of Winston-Salem). We just have to look for what Juan wants in a car.

Car owner Chip Ganassi (left) and Juan Pablo Montoya
(Photo credit: NASCAR)

“Our motors aren’t where some of the others are. But we’ve got a new engine, and we’re making that transition….but development sometimes stalls.
“I would agree that something is just not the same with this new (among the different car makers) – there is either a downforce difference (between makes) or a power difference….because it’s obviously all of us Dodges aren’t running that well.
“There are some differences in the engine power curve that we don’t have a handle on yet.
“And any little edge in downforce is priceless. The downforce level is so low in this car, a 100-pound gain can make a major difference in how it handles.
“But right now I’m glad NASCAR isn’t making a bunch of changes…because one wrong change can send everyone in the wrong direction. What they’re doing isn’t the best, for the frustration level us crew chiefs and drivers are feeling. But they’re being more calculating about it.”
Certainly the equipment needs to be faster. The Ganassi Dodges, like most Dodges on the tour, haven’t been the fastest, by a long shot. Questions about Dodge in general have been wafting through the garage. In a four-team manufacturers battle, Toyota, Ford and Chevrolet are fighting for the top spot, while Dodge is still trying (despite Daytona) to escape the basement.