MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- Depending on the point of view, driver Juan Montoya was either brilliant or reckless Sunday during the Goody's Cool Orange 500 at Martinsville Speedway.

Or maybe he was some of both.

Lap-by-Lap

For every move Jeff Gordon made, Jimmie Johnson countered in a thrilling finish at Martinsville. But before that, the first 499 laps had to play out.

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Tony Raines was running ninth and Montoya 10th on Lap 375 when Montoya hit Raines from behind and spun out the No. 96 Chevy that Raines was driving. That infuriated Raines, who came on his team radio and claimed he was "just trying to race the stupid," um, son of a gun. Well, that's not exactly what he said, but you get the idea.

After Raines ended up finishing 20th, he wasn't any happier about what had transpired.

"I don't know how he's thinking, or what his thinking is," Raines said. "[Montoya's supporters] are always going to think he's the greatest thing since sliced bread and I ain't s---, but I don't come out here to wreck people. I didn't wreck him; he shouldn't have wrecked me."

Montoya never ran better than 10th and ended up finishing 16th. That was a strong enough finish to impress many, including Felix Sabates, the minority owner at Chip Ganassi Racing that fields Montoya's No. 42 Dodge.

Sabates said that he remembers folks predicting that Montoya would struggle badly on Nextel Cup short tracks like Martinsville. Although a highly accomplished driver in other racing series, including Formula One, this is Montoya's first full-time season in NASCAR.

"He amazed the heck out of me, I'm telling you," Sabates said. "I think if we could have gotten him to the front and gotten some track position, he had a top-10 car. The problem was we never got track position. We were always stuck in the back of the pack. But he did a heck of a job. ... He surprised me, because this is a hard place to race."

Montoya was running 11th when a 33-minute rain delay appeared to rob him of some momentum.

"Our car there at the end after the rain, it wasn't the same," he said. "It was a little loose off the corners, so we lost a little drive. Before that, it was pretty good. I just couldn't get the power down. It was tight and I couldn't get the power down [and gain momentum coming out of the corners].

"It's OK. We got some points out of it."

Raines wasn't OK with how Montoya dealt with him, however.

"I was better than him at the time, and I thought I was racing him clean. I don't know if he got in there too deep on purpose or if he was mad or what -- but we'll get it figured out," said Raines, who sought out and had a brief meeting with Montoya's crew chief, Donnie Wingo, after the race.

"I thought I passed him clean. You know, you rub a little bit at Martinsville. But he had been driving in deep all day. I just didn't drive in that deep and he drove in there really deep and he wrecked me. He wrecked me. Whether he did it on purpose or not, that's for him to decide. Then he can tell me. But I haven't talked to him yet. I'm sure I will talk to him.

"I wasn't happy about it. I guess I need to figure out how he wants to race everybody. If he wants to race everybody different than the way everybody else races, then that's one thing."

Meanwhile, Sabates said he couldn't understand why so many other drivers were giving Montoya a hard time toward the end of the race.

"I was kind of surprised at some of the older drivers who were a couple of laps down, racing him as hard as they did at the end. Like Kyle [Petty] at the end. He was two laps down and he was racing him like he was going for the win -- and that was out of character for Kyle," Sabates said. "That just didn't make sense to me.

"They were all racing him hard. Two or three laps down? I can see racing a guy hard when you're on the same lap, but not when you're two or three laps down. I think [the other drivers] aren't going to give him any breaks. He's going to have to make his own breaks. But he's a quick study. They're going to have to work with him sooner or later."

Raines said it is the other way around. He said that despite Montoya's big reputation, he's still just a rookie in some ways.

"He's got some learning to do," Raines said. "He needs to learn how to race a little better -- but I will say without a doubt that he's unbelievably talented. I'll give him that. But I don't think what happened [Sunday] was quite necessary."

"If he's so good, he should be able to not run into the back of somebody."