Notes: Strong runs don't soothe thoughts on COT (cont'd)

Montoya scores top-10 after rough seven-race stretch
Not since his second-place finish in Indianapolis at the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard has Juan Montoya seen a top-10 finish.

That, of course, changed Sunday after the Chip Ganassi Racing driver brought his No. 42 Dodge home to a 10th-place finish at Dover, the fourth top-10 of his rookie season.

This was a welcomed turnaround for Montoya, who finished 31st in the spring race here after his machine suffered electrical problems.

"We just really stayed out of trouble," Montoya said. "That was the key thing. The last few weeks have been annoying when we had a good car and this week we finally figured something out."

Crew chief Donnie Wingo said he was impressed with Montoya's performance for only having raced at Dover one other time.

Roush, Ford Motor Co. celebrate 100th victory
Sunday's victory by Carl Edwards gave Roush Fenway Racing its 100th Nextel Cup Series win.

Jack Roush began his career as a team owner with Ford Racing in 1988 when Mark Martin drove the No. 6 Ford Thunderbird.

His first win came in October of 1989 when Martin won the AC Delco 500 at North Carolina Motor Speedway.

Roush apparently had lost count because until it was brought to his attention, he didn't realize he had reached such a racing milestone.

"The track owner here that passed away last year, Melvin Joseph, was a Ford man all the way and he really enjoyed celebrating every time we won here," Roush said. "It feels like we won eight or 10 times here at Dover for him. This is where he'd have wanted us to win our 100th win, and he wanted a Ford win, I'm sure."

Mikey likes it
Michael Waltrip has a reason to celebrate as well.

The Toyota driver, who for the most part of this season has struggled to make races, finished 15th on Sunday despite power-steering issues and a poor-handling racecar.

"We had gotten ourselves in a bind as far as the points because if it had rained out qualifying then we wouldn't have been in the race here this weekend," he said. "Now we have ourselves back in so if it rains in Kansas next weekend, we'll race [due to his number of starts]."