Montoya leaves Brickyard with nothing left to prove

INDIANAPOLIS -- Four years ago, Jeff Gordon would have never guessed that Juan Montoya would eventually make the move into NASCAR. When the Formula One driver and the four-time Nextel Cup champion swapped rides during an exhibition at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2003, the Colombian went into the first turn of the road course so hot that he locked up the front tires on the heavier stock car.

"I didn't think that you'd want to do this," Gordon told Montoya on Sunday.

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Montoya, sitting next to Gordon in the interview room at the famed 2.5-mile track, smiled at the memory. "It was fun," he said. So was Sunday, when in the midst of another round of Hoosier hysteria, the 31-year-old from Bogota turned in a runner-up finish in the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard that should dispel any doubts about his ability to contend for victories on any type of track on the Nextel Cup tour.

Tony Stewart surely touched off a celebration at the Moose Lodge in his native Columbus, Ind., with his second career victory at Indianapolis, driving away in an orange and white car that was easily the class of the field. But Sunday also served notice that Montoya, the most decorated Nextel Cup rookie in the sport's modern history, is a threat to win at tracks other than those that include both right and left turns. He came to arguably the most difficult oval in NASCAR, and made it look effortless.

"This place to me is tough, but he says it's easy," said Donnie Wingo, Montoya's crew chief. "I think it's one of the toughest places to come to and run, but he made it look easy [Sunday]. In qualifying, he did really good. You couldn't ask for a better weekend, except for a win."

Montoya left Indianapolis with nothing left to prove to anyone, including the fans who for some reason boo him during driver introductions before the race. He's now finished fourth or better in all three major races at Indianapolis, with Sunday's result following a dominant victory in the 2000 Indianapolis 500 and a fourth-place result in F1's United States Grand Prix in 2002. He's won on each of NASCAR's top two circuits, at Mexico City in the Busch tour in February and at Sonoma, Calif., in the big show in June.

And enough of the whining about how those two victories came on road courses. After his performance at Indianapolis, caveats like that no longer apply. Flukes don't overtake Gordon for second place at the Brickyard with three laps remaining. After Sunday, the idea of Montoya winning on an oval track on the Nextel Cup circuit seems less a matter of if, but when.

"I don't think he has anything left to prove except to himself," Wingo said. "He wants to win on an oval. We want to win, too. Second is the first runner-up. I don't think he really has anything to prove to anybody. We still have to get better as a team, a group, and give him better cars at some of these places. But I think we're gaining on it, and that's all you can ask for the first year with a rookie guy who comes from another series, to be able to pick up momentum and get better and better each week. I think that's what we've done."

Montoya processes information at a staggering pace. He won the Indy 500 in his first attempt, after having never even seen the place before May of that year, and performed as smoothly as if he had been driving on it for years. Team members credit the handful of Busch and ARCA events he raced in last year with helping him learn what a stock car feels like, and to identify what changes might make it better. This from a guy who had never competed on an oval until 1999, and had only about 20 career races on circle tracks until he moved to NASCAR last year.

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"I think from where we thought we were going to be, we've got to say we're way ahead," Montoya said. "But from where we want to be, we're still way behind. I think this is a big boost for the team, like the win at Sonoma, and Reed [Sorenson's] win last week in the Busch Series. It really shows what the team can do. But we've just got to look at Hendrick. They show up every week. They're always up there, and the only way to get into the Chase and secondly win the championship is, you've got to be good week in and week out."

That's a level Montoya has yet to reach. Indianapolis was only his fourth top-10 finish in a season full of inconsistencies, and blighted by an early summer stretch where he finished outside of the top 20 eight consecutive times. But Wingo said his Chip Ganassi Racing team is learning how to better free the car at the beginning of the race, which is how the driver likes it. It's not beyond the realm of possibility to think that Montoya can show improvement at other tracks once he becomes as familiar with them as he is Indianapolis. And a seven-time F1 winner who once had a reputation for being difficult to work with is thriving in a pressure-free environment.

"Something that's very nice in the position I'm in right now is, I've managed to achieve a lot of things in life already," he said. "I don't have the pressure of performing to keep a job. A lot of young guys have to do that. Guys like Jeff [Gordon] and myself, when you see a chance to win, you're going to take it and you're going to work hard for it. But you learn to be a lot smarter, and take the chance when you have to. There's no pressure. Working for Chip is really nice, because he's a guy who believes 100 percent in me, and that gives you a lot of confidence."

That shows in the way Montoya interacts with the members of his crew.

"He's definitely a morale-booster," Wingo said. "He keeps everybody pumped up. He thanks everybody for the job they do. He comes around and shakes everybody's hand after practice, after qualifying. He's a tremendous guy. He keeps everybody pumped up, and he demands a lot. That's what you want. You want somebody that demands a lot from a team, to keep pushing the team to do better. That's what we need, and that's what we've got."

And sooner or later, they're going to get a victory on an oval track. In all likelihood, several of them. Sunday, that much was as clear as the brilliant blue sky that hung over Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.