When it come to speeding, does punishment fit crime?

By now, the fact that Juan Montoya was indeed speeding on his final pit stop Sunday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway seems obvious to everyone -- except perhaps the driver himself, still shaking his head over all those green lights he saw on his dashboard gauges, and that fringe element of the fan base that sees a conspiracy theory behind every grassy knoll.

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Juan Montoya was shocked to learn he was caught speeding on pit road at Indianapolis, but David Caraviello says that shouldn't ruin what was a great day for the No. 42 Chevy.

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Nobody from Earnhardt Ganassi Racing was banging on the back door of the NASCAR hauler demanding explanations, as teams usually do when they believe they've been wronged. Series officials shared their numbers and information to anyone who asked for them, and any lingering controversy faded along with the sunlight.

So yes, Montoya was speeding, not once but twice. On a track where the pit-road speed limit is 55 mph, Sprint Cup director John Darby said Montoya was consistently around 59 as he rolled down pit road the final time, and was ultimately penalized after he cracked 60. Felix Sabates and Brian Pattie, Montoya's minority car owner and crew chief, respectively, seemed satisfied enough with NASCAR's explanation. If they are, then everyone else should be, too.

The argument here is not with the system, which to NASCAR's credit is fair and open and a vast improvement over the days when series officials were timing pit-road speed using handheld stopwatches, a recipe for inaccuracy if there ever was one. No question, as winning crew chief Chad Knaus said Sunday, drivers are in the dark when they hit pit road as to their speed relative to NASCAR's limits.

These aren't IndyCars, which are outfitted with rev limiters that drivers use on pit road to prevent them from exceeding a certain speed. But the current system exists because the competitors in the garage area clamored for something more modern and more reliable. They got it, and the increased number of speeding violations -- 74 through Indy -- that inevitably go along with using technology to narrow the margin for error.

So no, the argument is not with the system. The argument is with the penalty, which took the best car at the Brickyard completely out of the running. Yes, Montoya was guilty. But he also led 116 of 124 laps and enjoyed a five-second lead on the rest of the field before he came to pit road for that final, fateful stop.

Being a fraction of a mile per hour over the speed limit resulted in a pass-through penalty, which put him back in 12th place when the event restarted with 23 laps remaining. From there, he had no chance to win. On a narrow track like Indianapolis where passing is very difficult, he improved only one position the rest of the way. (Continued)