Montoya eighth at Phoenix, makes move on top five (cont'd)

"It just takes the wind out of your sails and there's nothing you can do about it," Grubb said. "It's just luck. I heard that the 88 [Earnhardt] broke an oil line, which caused that whole crash and we were in the wrong place at the wrong time."

What's been even more enticing for Montoya's Earnhardt Ganassi Racing organization is the fact that in five of the nine races in his first Chase he's finished either third or fourth. He started the Chase with the never-achieved feat of four consecutive top-five finishes.

“

It's just luck. ... We were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

”

DARIAN GRUBB

• Video: Watch the wreck

"It'd be nice," Montoya said. "But we have three DNFs out of the nine [Chase] races, and we're still sixth in points. So overall that's pretty good."

Montoya was a ball of fire, literally, three years ago when he made his Cup debut at Homestead and tangled with Ryan Newman heading into Turn 1. The fiery wreck didn't injure him, but left him 34th.

In the two races since then, Montoya's finished 15th and 17th; and he led in the race last year. Stewart's finished 15th, 30th and ninth in those same races, so it seems like a toss-up.

Grubb and Montoya have equally hopeful thoughts about their possibilities.

"We've got to improve our cars because we've kind of missed the boat the last couple weeks on the setups," Montoya said. "It'll be interesting. I'm going to spend a couple days with Brian [Pattie, crew chief] and all the crew, so it should be good."

"It's a little of both, comfort with his history and nervous about how close it is because we've never been there with Tony Stewart, personally and we don't know what he likes in a race car [at Homestead]," Grubb said. "He's been really good there in the past and we know he has the feel [for the track]. It's just a matter of us actually finding out what it takes to get the car feeling that way for him."

"We weren't running good enough -- we should have been in the top five at that point, the way I see it, so we hurt ourselves to get ourselves back into that position," Grubb said of Stewart's misfortune. "We've got to do our best to get back up there [in the points]."