CONCORD, N.C. -- In what's become a rough Chase for anyone not named "Johnson," Juan Montoya's title hopes all but vaporized Saturday night at Lowe's Motor Speedway.

In a matter of seconds on the fourth of 10 restarts in the NASCAR Banking 500, Montoya's car suffered enough damage when it was pinched between the cars of Clint Bowyer and Mark Martin, to relegate it to a 35th-place finish.

“

We had one of our fastest cars. Not much we can do. It's one of those racing things that will happen and we've just got to move on.

”

-- JUAN MONTOYA

"When you look at the impact of aero -- and you hate to use an over-used term, but these cars are extremely aero-dependent," Earnhardt Ganassi Racing director of competition Steve Hmiel said. "Once you knock a part of it off, like we did, you're not going to run like you need to run the rest of the night."

Hmiel had had about 30 hours to digest what had happened, so he was able to inject some humor into what had been a gruesome event as it played out Saturday night, when a near-desperate Montoya and crew chief Brian Pattie had exchanged their need for a caution to be able to fix their car's damage.

"We're pushing real hard to have a TV time-out whenever one is necessary -- just stop all the cars and let us fix ours," Hmiel said through a laugh. "But what actually happens is the cars are all incredibly competitive and they all run basically the same speed during the race, or within tenths of a second, and if you tear your body up, without a bunch of cautions that are perfectly timed for you to come in and make proper repairs -- and it's very difficult to make proper repairs because so many parts of the car are tied to other parts of the car -- you're never gonna end up with the same car you had [and you end up laps down]."

That was exactly what happened to Montoya, who battled his car for nearly 40 laps, losing one lap in the process, before he spun coming off Turn 4 just before halfway. The team applied a patch to the right rear quarter panel, which lasted only a little more than 20 laps before the airflow ripped it off.

But through the whole debacle, the obvious positive was that Pattie kept a close rein both on his driver and his crew -- kept them focused and fighting to salvage anything they could.

"You keep working and working and working," Hmiel said. "But it's a pretty grim task because you're standing there knowing that you've taken a car that was competitive and for no reason other than trying to be as competitive as you can be, you get torn up and now you're happy to be in the top 30 rather than in the top three.

"Suddenly you're relegated to where you are, and you have to have some intestinal fortitude and not look at the overall situation. It would be easy to say 'these guys [Johnson's team] are unbeatable' -- and they're an incredible race team -- but by the same token things can happen to anybody, so you've just got to keep your head down and keep doing what you're doing."

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But in the end the fact was that Montoya, whose four top-five finishes to start the Chase had never been achieved in five previous Chases, just as quickly has been erased from contention.

Chase leader and three-time defending champion Jimmie Johnson scored maximum points for his win. Montoya, who came into the race 58 points behind Johnson in third, fell three spots to sixth, a seemingly insurmountable 195 points behind.

Pattie was left to set the tone after Montoya took the checkered four laps down.

"We've got plenty of racing left," the Chase rookie crew chief said.

And Hmiel was even more emphatic as he praised Pattie and Montoya's crew.

"The same way of thinking is still going to prevail and we'll just keep trying hard to do the best that we can," Hmiel said. "These guys were on pins and needles all summer long, hoping to make the Chase. And then they made the Chase and there's about two minutes of terrific joy and satisfaction, and then you start worrying about how you're going to run in the Chase.

"So these kids have been under nothing but incredible pressure -- constantly. And then they start the Chase top-three, top-four, leading a race and you're like, 'holy cow, this might just happen.' And then you have a terrible day. I'm proud that those guys weren't reduced to tears."

And Montoya, who might have let out only one emotional yelp pleading for permission to pit when he realized how badly damaged his car was, immediately settled down and tried to make the best solution to his car's problems.

When he first exited the car, he was calm in his post-race analysis with team manager Tony Glover. And he was matter-of-fact in discussing what had happened, and what it meant.

"They all accelerated and they all checked up -- every time the No. 24 [Jeff Gordon] restarted it was the same thing -- I checked up and somebody didn't slow down and just ripped off the whole rear of the car," Montoya said. "Just one of those deals. It is what it is and you've just got to move on."

It was only when he was asked if a split-second occurrence on a single restart had become his team's worst-case scenario that Montoya seemed to be annoyed.

"[The worst-case scenario] for what?" Montoya said. "We made the Chase and up until [Saturday] we had four top-fives in a row and what's bad about it, you know what I mean? It's racing. If you're expecting to have 10 clean races then you're dreaming.

"We knew it could happen and here, always the restarts are an issue. I managed to slow down and I just got hit from behind. It happens."

Montoya acknowledged what his team's done so far and said he didn't expect that to change.

"Everybody on this car [Saturday] was pretty impressive," Montoya said. "We had one of our fastest cars. Not much we can do. We worked as hard as we could and we did all that we thought was possible and [Saturday] the best we could do was 35th.

"We were actually surprised. Everybody on the team is doing such a good job that even [Saturday] we had a faster car than [Johnson]. So, it happens. It's one of those racing things that will happen and we've just got to move on."

Video: Montoya goes for a spin | Post-race reactions