Road courses always have been a curious thing in Nextel Cup racing.

I mean, what's the point, right? You run a total of 36 races in a season -- and only two of them require a series of right turns as well as the usual hard lefts?

Well, Juan Montoya made the point Sunday that road courses can be quite entertaining. It wasn't just that the flamboyant Montoya captured the first Cup victory of his career, winning the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, Calif. It was the way he did it. (watch video)

• Send Joe your thoughts

Robby Gordon's post-race whining notwithstanding, Montoya's run to the front was captivating -- and the fact that he ran the last few laps while the specter of running out of gas loomed over him and other frontrunners only added to the suspense.

Afterward, Gordon and other drivers, including second-place finisher Kevin Harvick, lamented that "the fastest car didn't win." (watch video) Funny how that works. Had it been them and not Montoya who gambled and worked the fuel strategy to their winning advantage, they wouldn't have been complaining.

And really, how often does the fastest car actually win the race anyway? Plus, the fastest car at the beginning or middle isn't always the fastest car at the end. In most of these events, it's as much about the in-race adjustments teams make to their cars as it is anything else.

The bottom line is that Sunday's event may have been one of the most compelling of the season thus far. In fact, it could be argued that at least two of the top four or five races run this season have involved fuel-mileage gambits at the end -- the other being the Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe's Motor Speedway one month ago. We're talking for pure entertainment value -- and outside of the season-opening Daytona 500, which was a thriller -- it's hard to beat the show that was put on Sunday at Infineon or the Coca-Cola 600 at LMS.

Some folks acted like Casey Mears was supposed to apologize for winning that one, too. But managing your fuel mileage, as Jeff Gordon also did with a much-criticized gamble when he won a rain-shortened race at Pocono on June 10, is part of the game. There is no crime in getting it right.

Which brings us back to road courses. Has NASCAR gotten it right by keeping the two road-course races on the schedule? The only other road-course event is set for Aug. 12 at Watkins Glen International, in a little more than one month before the Chase for the Nextel Cup championship begins.

Some NASCAR purists have long argued that the Cup schedule should be purged of all road-course events. Why race twice a year on a road course when the rest of the season is spent on ovals?

The fact is, the long Cup season might actually be more interesting if there were more road-course races. Wouldn't it be fun to have four road-course races instead of two -- and if one of those was included among the final 10 during the Chase?

Either road-course driving counts for something in determining the season's champion or it doesn't. There really should be no in-between.

As it is now, Montoya's compelling victory made for some great highlights and makes for an entertaining short-term story. And if he rallies to make the Chase it will give him 10 extra points for the victory heading into "the playoffs."

But because there are only two road-course races, it probably will end up meaning not much at all in the big picture.

It won't happen because the schedule already is set and it's far too inflexible, but what NASCAR should do is add a couple of more of these events and make it so Cup teams never feel as if they can afford to replace their regular drivers with "road-course ringers" such as Ron Fellows and Boris Said.

It would force all the drivers to learn how to compete on the road courses as well as the ovals, it would add an interesting aspect if one of the 10 Chase races was at a road course, and maybe some of Montoya's smug ex-Formula One driving buddies (and fans) wouldn't turn their noses so much at the guys who mostly make their million-dollar livings by turning left all afternoon.

Crazy or clairvoyant?

OK, so now Montoya has won a race. Will it produce the windfall of new fans into the sport that so many have predicted?

That remains to be seen, of course, but it looks like it could be a start. In his rookie NASCAR season after switching over from F1, Montoya has now captured victories on road courses both in the Busch Series (Mexico City) and in Cup. And the native of the South American country of Colombia did so at two venues where Hispanic fans were likely to be paying the most attention.

One of Montoya's biggest fans all season has been Humpy Wheeler, president of Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte. Montoya's victory brings to mind the words of Wheeler during the preseason LMS media tour, when Wheeler predicted Montoya success on the track could ultimately mean global expansion of the sport. He pointed out that Montoya's popularity goes beyond the Hispanic community, noting that Montoya has fan clubs as far away as Russia because of his previous success and popularity in the F1 series.

"[If] Montoya does well, people in Europe are going to get interested. Hispanics and the South American community are going to get more interested in it, and then the demand for races will come. And we'll give 'em one," Wheeler said then.

Wheeler also pointed out the need for better television ratings in the New York, Chicago and Los Angeles markets, insisting that Montoya held the key to that, too.

"One of the things that is going to help us -- not will, but can -- is getting better ratings in New York, Chicago and LA," Wheeler added. "In order to do that, we've got to have a reason for Hispanics to like it. I mean, LA's 50 percent Hispanic. I think this is what a successful Montoya would do for us. But he's got to be successful. He can't sit back there and finish 15th every race to get people excited."

Well, now he's finished first. If he does it a couple more times this year and builds on it next, it won't take long to see if Wheeler is as crazy as he sometimes sounds or as clairvoyant as he often claims (remember his once-impressive but overall spotty record in picking winners of the annual All-Star race?).

Questionable decision

You've got to wonder if Joe Gibbs Racing made the right call when it had Aric Almirola pulled from a Busch car and replaced at mid-race by Cup regular Denny Hamlin last Saturday in The Milwaukee Mile. You've also got to wonder if Hamlin might not have prevented it by refusing to get into the car, and telling his bosses that he wanted to do the right thing and let the 22-year-old Almirola attempt to finish what he had started.

Sponsor-skipped

J.D. Gibbs remains committed to Aric Almirola and hopes the young development driver, despite being pulled from the car at Milwaukee for sponsor obligations, lands a full-time Busch ride in 2008.

• Complete story, click here
• Race Video, click here

As it was, Almirola was ordered to the pits after leading 43 of the first 57 laps. Hamlin, who arrived late from far, far away Infineon Raceway, jumped in the car and guided it to a victory that will be credited to Almirola -- who nonetheless was reportedly so upset that he left the track and wasn't around to see it.

Yes, Hamlin came a long way to show his appreciation for longtime Gibbs Racing Busch sponsor Rockwell Automation. But by forcing Almirola out of the car, the entire Gibbs operation risked alienating one of the most talented up-and-coming drivers in the sport -- one that they've invested four years in developing.

Who deserved more loyalty? Almirola or the sponsor? And wouldn't the sponsor have understood if Hamlin volunteered to stay out of the seat and let Almirola have his chance to shine?

Mounting a comeback

The top-finishing Ford at Infineon on Sunday was Greg Biffle, driver of the No. 16 car owned by Roush Fenway Racing. Biffle finished fifth.

A week earlier in Michigan, Biffle admitted that car owner Jack Roush's claim that his team can regroup in time to make a run for the championship this season may be, well, a little far-fetched. After first stating that, yes, that was what Biffle was here to do, he was pressed on whether Roush's recently ramped-up testing program and the upcoming installation of a seven-post shaker rig that other top teams have had in place for two years or more would be enough to make a real difference before this season was out.

"Not this year, no," Biffle admitted. "With something like that, with how far behind the field we are, that's not going to happen in six months. Those kinds of things take 12 to 18 months to recover from, I think.

"It's a big disadvantage right now. But we feel like we're gaining on them ... Robbie Reiser is heading up our testing program, and he's got a very aggressive testing schedule set up now. So we're definitely gaining ground."

When pressed on whether or not it was realistic to expect that he could regroup enough to contend for a spot in the Chase and the championship this season, Biffle, now 17th in points, bristled and added: "What do you want me to do? Give up? What would you expect me to do? It's going to be tough, that's all I'm saying. It's going to be hard to do, but I've just got to dig as hard as I can. I'm not going to give up. I never have and I never will."

Pit stops

• Did any driver struggle more obviously at Infineon than Matt Kenseth, who pilots the No. 17 Ford of Roush Fenway Racing? He plowed into Kyle Petty (watch video) needlessly and clumsily on the first lap of the race, spun off the course at least one other time, and staggered home in 34th place. Despite starting in the top 10 four times in his career at the track, Kenseth has never finished in the top 10 at Sonoma.

• At least Kenseth fared better Sunday than he did a week earlier at Michigan International Speedway, when his string of finishing 44 consecutive races was snapped. Prior to his early exit at MIS, Kenseth was the only Cup driver who could boast that he had completed every lap run this season. He finished one lap down at Infineon.

• Both Petty and his Petty Enterprises teammate, Bobby Labonte in the No. 43 Dodge, had potential strong finishes ruined at the end of Sunday's race by their own bad gambles on gas. Labonte was running fifth with two laps to go when he ran out of fuel; Petty was running 14th and closing in on the top 10 in the closing laps when he ran out.

That only further illustrates how you win some and you lose some when you gamble on gas, but it's always exciting. A fuel-mileage gamble that broke the right way for Petty enabled him to finish third in the Coca-Cola 600 earlier this year. It was his highest finish in a decade.

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.