Wind surfer Montoya riding Chase wave of momentum (cont'd)

Q: Do you look within for most of those ideas, or outside the company?

Montoya: It is more of looking at what everybody else is doing and learning. Why are they doing this? Why are they doing that? At the same time, it's about what we do, too. How can we make ourselves better? We are doing that every week, too.

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Q: How important is it for you to get away from racing once in a while, like you did during the rare off week last week?

Montoya: I think the down time is as important as the [race] weekends. Every weekend, whether the last one was good or bad, you've got to be able to have your head clear and come to the next weekend with a completely open mind. And in a way it's cool that we had a break. But on the other side of that, we have a lot of momentum in the team and don't want to break that.

Q: So what did you do last week?

Montoya: We went to Aruba and did a lot of wind surfing.

Q: Wind surfing, eh?

Montoya: [Wife] Connie and I try to wind surf as much as we can. We just spent the last week in Aruba on vacation. We got out into the water a lot. The water was perfect for wind surfing. We had a great time.

Q: So you're pretty serious about this wind surfing stuff?

Montoya: When we go wind surfing in Miami, we take a van to hold all of our equipment. It's kind of funny because when we pull it up on the beach and start to unload, people think we're renting out the equipment. I guess that means we have too much stuff.

Q: How did you first get into the wind surfing scene?

Montoya: My engine guy in Formula One used to do wind surfing. In Australia, my second year there [for the F1 race], he invited me and we got some gear there and went out -- and I really liked it. I bought some gear of my own in Miami. I used to do it every time I went to Miami, so it was twice a year. In Europe, the water was way too cold. So I never got in the water there.

Living in Miami, it's ideal. The wind is [good] over the winter and in the summer it is absolutely dead and it sucks. It's horrible. I'm bored out of my mind then.