Where's Juan? Loudon

What looked to be a promising race at Richmond for Juan Montoya literally went up in flames at Richmond International Raceway on Saturday night.

After a strong qualifying effort which saw the No. 42 Dodge starting 15th, Montoya kept his car up front the first half of the race and was in 10th on Lap 241 when Ryan Newman spun in front of him.

The spin caused drivers to hit the brakes and Montoya had nowhere to go when he was slammed from behind into the car in front of him causing his car to burst into flames (watch video).

"I don't know. I think the [No.] 2 car spun and then everybody started hitting me," Montoya said after the race. "I just got rubbed from behind and pushed into another car. There was just smoke everywhere. I got pushed, hit the guy in front, and the next thing I hear is my spotter telling me 'Get out, get out. It's on fire [smiles].' We had a good run going.

"That's the thing that's huge. A lot of times we qualify well, we were kind of keeping up and I saw today that we were actually making good changes and we were making a lot of progress. And to have a result like this is terrible."

Montoya will look to erase that 41st-place finish as the No. 42 team heads to New Hampshire for the Sylvania 300.

He has one race under his belt at the 1-mile flat track in Loudon, N.H., and he ran well qualifying fifth and finishing 19th this past July.