HAMPTON, Ga. -- For a guy who couldn't find Atlanta Motor Speedway on a map four days ago, Juan Montoya certainly found the fast way around once he got directions.

Running a line that took him right up against the concrete wall nearly the entire race, Montoya finished fifth in Sunday's Kobalt Tools 500. Combined with a top-10 effort in Saturday's Busch Series race, he'll have Georgia on his mind until the Nextel Cup Series returns in October.

"I tell you, I love this track," Montoya said. "You can really race and I was really comfortable. That's one of the bigger things for me is the way the car was stepping out before with the harder tires, it's a lot more unpredictable and I wasn't that comfortable. Here, you just turn the wheel and keep going."

Much of that was Montoya's decision to choose the high line, running the car up near the wall in the turns.

"To tell you the truth, it's funny because I remember at the Homestead test last year, before the race, everybody was running the top and I was just running the bottom, just like open wheel," Montoya said. "And I wouldn't go up there. It's like 'No way.' As the race went on in Homestead I got more comfortable running the top."

Montoya said one of the most difficult things about stock-car racing is the transition from braking to acceleration, and how that affects the handling of the car.

"When I run the bottom, I think I use a lot more wheel than a lot of the guys," he said. "If you've got a lot of wheel when you get on the gas, it gets really loose. When you run the top, you've got a lot less wheel. It probably is that."

Unfortunately, Montoya -- who flirted with the wall nearly every lap -- finally whacked it good on the lap after the final restart. It wrecked any chance he had of catching the leaders.

"The last restart I thought I had Jimmie on the outside and had a great run and just ran out of room," Montoya said. "It's one of those things where you go up to the wall and you've got it wide-open, hoping you're going to make it and you just run out of road.

"That damaged all the fenders. It's all good. The best result before this was 19th, so I think we're going in the right direction."

However, Montoya knows the next few weeks will be much tougher.

"We go to Bristol, that's going to be a nightmare," he said. "Martinsville will probably be another tough one. Darlington, let's not even talk about that one!

"I'm getting comfortable now on these tracks. I need to work on the other ones and we're going to have ups and downs. But when the car is comfortable, we're going to get in the rhythm the second half of the season where we start going to tracks I've been to and we run the car we ran there and the setups and then a little bit of what I know I need to run. That's going to definitely help."

Montoya's strong run certainly caught the attention of the drivers who finished in the top three spots.

"This is a tough race track, a long race running the top, the bottom," winner Jimmie Johnson said. "When I looked in the mirror and saw him catching me at times, he was rim-riding the top of the track. For an open wheel guy to come in and feel comfortable [enough] to do that, I think that says a lot about his talents."

Second-place Tony Stewart said it's not easy to go fast at Atlanta your first time out.

"I'm pretty impressed. To come to Atlanta and run that well here, to be able to figure this place out," Stewart said. "I didn't figure it out in one try by any means. He did an awesome job.

"Every track he goes to this year is going to be a new track for him. But that shows why he got his opportunity in Formula One because he's a great talent."

Matt Kenseth got a look at Montoya's "unique entry" into the corners and was impressed.

"When I was running fifth or whatever, he blew my doors off," Kenseth said. "He was running the high side and what I said was, 'He's gonna win the race if he doesn't hit the wall.'

"I thought he was going to [win] because he was flying up there."

Montoya said he appreciates the compliments.

"I think it's been great. I've been very respectful of them," he said. "I think they are great drivers. They are making my life tough. It's hard work.

"Something that's amazing is how clean they race. It's great. You get a run, they'll give you room. They get a run on you, you've got to give them room and you learn to play that way and it just makes the racing awesome."