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.

"It's sort of like a team that's dominated a football game or something, and they step out of bounds on the crucial play that would have gotten them in the end zone," NASCAR chairman Brian France told Sirius satellite radio on Monday. "That's just the way it is."

Well, it is, and it isn't. In many sports, in-game penalties are relatively minor -- two free throws in basketball, 15 yards in football, two minutes in hockey or one stroke in golf. They can also be overcome, especially if the team or athlete in question is playing with an advantage as sizeable as the one Montoya enjoyed at Indianapolis. They can be overcome in racing, too -- Carl Edwards rallied from a speeding penalty to win at Michigan in 2007, and Greg Biffle did the same en route to victory in a Nationwide event at Las Vegas this year -- but only if they happen early enough so that the driver has time to make up the lost ground.

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I think the penalty is fair. They've got to set up black-and-white marks which you can't go [past]. The problem is our race cars are so equal right now that nobody can pass, so they're trying to get every inch on pit road.

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-- DENNY HAMLIN

Sunday, Montoya didn't have that luxury. His penalty was akin to a football team having a three-touchdown lead wiped out by a holding call. Comparatively, it seems overly harsh. Montoya's penalty at the Brickyard, and its race-changing results, has sparked something of a debate among casual race fans as to whether the punishment fits the crime. After all, Tiger Woods doesn't lose the U.S. Open if he has a five-shot lead and pulls a tee shot out of bounds.

But that's tantamount to what happened to Montoya. As soon as his No. 42 car tripped the radar gun in the second of eight speeding zones set up along the pit road at Indianapolis, his Brickyard was finished, regardless of the number of laps he had led or the number of seconds by which he had been out front.

Does that seem fair? It's a difficult question to answer, given that auto racing is unlike other sports, and it's tough to come up with alternative penalties to the traditional pass-through and stop-and-go. Plus, according to Denny Hamlin, the fact that Montoya had no chance to win after his speeding violation had less to do with the penalty than it did the race track.

"I think it took him out of the running because of where we were. We weren't at a race track where he could make that up. Indy is the toughest place to pass that we go to on our circuit. With the speeds what they are, it's a one-groove race track. There's no doubt about that. These cars don't have any downforce. When you get behind someone, you just can't go anywhere. It's been proven. You look at the lead changes, probably green-flag passes at Indianapolis, it's less than any other race track. It's just so tough there. But any other race track he wouldn't have been taken out of the race," Hamlin said.

"No matter what you do, if you have a penalty with 30 laps to go, you've made your day right there. If you did it 30 laps into the race, probably still could have made it up and have been a contender for a race win. But it happened so late in the race, no matter what you do, what kind of rule you try to implement. You're going to get taken out. It doesn't matter whether they penalize you five spots, 10 spots, whatever. I think the penalty is fair. They've got to set up black-and-white marks which you can't go [past]. The problem is our race cars are so equal right now that nobody can pass, so they're trying to get every inch on pit road that they can to maybe beat one guy out of pit lane."

Yes, Montoya was flirting with the speed limit when he came in for his final stop. But all drivers do that. They're conditioned to getting everything they can out of their race cars, on pit road as well as on the race track. If they're going too slow, playing it overly cautious as many believe Montoya should have been Sunday, they're going to pay for it. Drivers and teams make a practice of finding out where that pit-road limit is and coming in right on top of it, as well they should. Anything else would be like asking a fast-break basketball team to milk the clock, or a pursuing football defense to sit back in a prevent. Those are the kinds of things that eventually get you beat.

"I understand why he was pushing the limit," Hamlin said. "You always have to push the limit, because we're trying to get everything we can. Because on the race track, we can only do so much. We don't have a car that can pass really well right now at that race track. But I think it's getting better. NASCAR is definitely looking at what they can do to make it better, and eventually it's going to be better than what it was. When you have a penalty that late in the race, you choose your own fate."

In a sport with harsh penalties for pit-road speeding violators, that certainly seemed to be the case on Sunday. And as for those green dashboard lights that gave Montoya such a false sense of security at the Brickyard? No one would be surprised if they're recalibrated before Sunday's event at Pocono Raceway.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.