Juan Montoya will drive the No. 42 Dodge for Chip Ganassi in 2007. Credit: Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images

24 before 500: Montoya hits the road at Daytona

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Former CART and Indianapolis 500 champion Juan Montoya will get some advance racing warmup for his first Daytona 500 -- actually 24 hours worth -- when he competes in the opening event of Speedweeks 2007, the Rolex 24 At Daytona.

Defending Rolex 24 winner Chip Ganassi Racing announced Friday at Daytona International Speedway that Montoya, who is scheduled to contest the full Nextel Cup Series slate in Ganassi's No. 42 Dodge, would drive one of its team cars in the Grand-American Rolex Series opener Jan. 27-28.

	Juan Montoya finished 34th in his Nextel Cup debut. Credit: Chris Trotman/Getty Images
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Former Ganassi Cup driver Casey Mears won the event last year in the No. 02 Lexus Riley with a pair of Ganassi's IRL drivers, Scott Dixon and Dan Wheldon.

Montoya will drive the team's lead car, the No. 01 Lexus Riley, with former Grand-Am Rolex Series champion driver Scott Pruett and Mexican A1GP driver Salvador Duran.

"It's nice to know you are coming here with a car that won last year," Montoya said. "That makes it really exciting.

"Yes, I've won big races and everything, but Daytona, especially in America, is a big deal and it would be a very nice win if you could win [the 24 Hours] before the [Daytona] 500."

Montoya said his only previous visit to Daytona came three years ago, when he was here to help his younger brother Frederico race sprint karts in the speedway's infield inside Turn 3 of the tri-oval.

"I didn't even know where the road course went -- left or right or anything -- until I took a ride in a car [Friday] morning," Montoya said. "It's exciting to be here and it's nice that we're using both banks."

Montoya referred to the East and West banking of the famous tri-oval, which is part of the 3.56-mile road course used for the Rolex 24.

"It's pretty good and actually will help me when I come back in the Cup car," Montoya said, "because it's quite bumpy and you kind of found where the bumps are and I think that's going to help me out a little bit."

Montoya, who will also compete in the Daytona 300 Busch Series race during Speedweeks, said the Rolex fits well with his stock car warmup plans.

"This place is outrageous, and it will probably be my home for the next two months," Montoya said with a laugh. "My motorhome will be here in a week, then I have three days of Cup testing, three days of Busch testing, this [24-hour] race, the [Busch] race and all the practicing.

"It's non-stop here."

The Rolex is Montoya's first sports-car race since driving an "old" Spice GTP car in Colombia in either "1996 or 1997, but there's nothing to compare because this [Riley] is an awesome car to drive."

The majority of his career has been in open-wheel cars. He won the 1998 FIA Formula 3000 championship in Europe before coming to America, where he won the 1999 CART championship and the 2000 Indianapolis 500 before going to Formula One, where he won seven races, including the 2003 Grand Prix of Monaco.

	Credit: Daytona International Speedway
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Along with the Jan. 15 second session of Preseason Thunder, when Montoya will make his Daytona stock-car debut, he'll also run three days of Busch testing, which is scheduled from Jan. 19-23.

After an intense initial break-in last fall, in which he was in a stock car more than he was out of one for the first 25 days, Montoya said he'd had two Car of Tomorrow tests last month -- on a road course and a short track.

"We did a road course test at Road Atlanta, and that was a lot of fun," Montoya said. "I think we were pretty competitive, but it's hard to be consistently quick.

"It's a lot of work and the car moves a lot more than anything I've ever driven before. Then we went to Lakeland [the .750-mile USA International Speedway] and I thought it went pretty well.

"We ran pretty close lap times with [Ganassi Nextel Cup teammate David] Stremme and I was comfortable with that.

"But I think at this point, with those cars, it doesn't matter what the lap times are, but it's how you can make the car more competitive.

"Because when you get to the racetracks and everyone has the Car of Tomorrow, it's going to come down to who did the best job in testing is the team that's going to be ahead, and we need to focus on that and make sure that when we get there, we've got the best package."

When he gets done with testing, Montoya said he's looking forward to getting to his first full Speedweeks -- especially the Daytona 500.

"In a way, you're going to be glad that it's over, the whole testing and everything, and you're into business," Montoya said. "All this testing before the 500, yes, it's good, but when you spend two days running the Cup car here by yourself [you almost don't even have to drive it].

"The key thing there is [determining] what the car is going to do once you get into traffic. The key thing there is, [Dodge] has a new nose and we haven't even tried it yet, so that should be pretty good."

With Mears moving this season to Hendrick Motorsports, Mears and Dixon will drive the 02 with another Mexican driver, Memo Rojas.