LOUDON, N.H. -- They were under caution less than 100 laps into NASCAR's playoff opener at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, but they sounded like they were enjoying a Sunday drive. Juan Montoya and Brian Pattie were discussing some aspect of race strategy, and the driver advised the crew chief to not get too worked up over it. Worrying, Montoya said over the radio, wasn't going to change anything.

"Worrying was for last week," Pattie concurred.

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Worrying? Who's worrying? Certainly no one on the No. 42 team, which sambaed through its first Chase weekend with an ease that stood in stark contrast to the chaos all around them. No, they didn't win the race -- wily veteran Mark Martin thwarted the advance of the red-and-white Chevy, which was coming as if fired out of a catapult. But they led every practice session, they won the pole, and they led the most laps Sunday afternoon before finishing third behind Martin and Denny Hamlin. And they sent yet another message that they're going to be a factor in the championship race before all is said and done.

"We gave them something to talk about for the next week," Pattie told his team on the radio after the race. In only his sixth start on the technical New Hampshire race track, Montoya was the class of the field until the cars were bunched together by a late yellow flag. They laughed and told jokes on the radio under caution. Until the very end, there was rarely a moment when the driver sounded agitated. The Chase is supposed to be all about pressure and intensity and teeth-gnashing over every position on the race track. "Everyone panics," Hamlin said after an event comprised of tense restarts and banged fenders and enough side-by-side racing to fill an entire season.

Not Montoya. Right now, he doesn't even seem to know what pressure is.

"What's the pressure?" he asked after the race. "We made the Chase. From now on, anything above that, it's a bonus. Come here, first Chase race, sit on pole, finish [third], can I wish for anything else? Not really. A win would be nice, but we're getting there. That will come."

More runs like Sunday's, and it's inevitable. Montoya came to New Hampshire as the only Chase contender without a career top-five finish on the one-mile oval -- he actually had never finished better than 12th -- and he absolutely owned the place from the first lap of practice Friday morning until the penultimate lap Sunday afternoon. Is this what the Earnhardt Ganassi operation had in mind when it said everything would change the final 10 races, after a regular season spent racing conservatively and aiming only for the finishes it needed to make the Chase?

"I believe you saw it," said Pattie, whose team secured its Chase berth with a 19th-place finish at Richmond last Saturday night. "Our driver is ready, and we have really good cars coming down the pike here. We just continue our game plan of proving everybody wrong, and that we're legit."

“

We made the Chase. From now on, anything above that, it's a bonus. Come here, first Chase race, sit on pole, finish [third], can I wish for anything else? Not really. A win would be nice, but we're getting there. That will come.

”

-- JUAN MONTOYA

They certainly were Sunday. For all his success on the race track this season, despite a breakthrough campaign in which he vaulted from 25th in points and into championship contention, there were always the nagging doubts. About whether Earnhardt Ganassi, an organization not quite up to the level of a Hendrick Motorsports or a Joe Gibbs Racing, could turn out the kind of vehicles capable of delivering a championship. About whether Montoya, a Formula One expatriate whose lone career Cup victory came two years ago on a road course, could mount a consistent challenge on ovals. No question, New Hampshire is but one step in a 10-race journey. But as the haulers left Loudon on Sunday evening, any lingering questions about Montoya's status as a viable contender seemed to dissipate into the cool New England air.

They rolled out a new car at New Hampshire, and it dominated the weekend. There's another new car ready for next Sunday's event at Dover, and another one being assembled for Kansas the week after that. As he led lap after lap Sunday, it appeared Montoya might become the first foreign-born driver ever to lead the point standings in NASCAR's premier division. As it was, he had to settle for fourth place, 55 points behind Martin. He'll take it, especially given that staggered pit sequences mired him in 15th place with about 100 laps to go. Pattie assured his driver that it would all work out, that the timing of their stops would leave them with fresher tires at the end when it counted most.

Montoya admittedly was a little skeptical. But on restarts, his car was a bullet, and he made up the ground almost effortlessly. Hey, no worrying, right?

"I'm more than happy," he said. "I'm running 12th and I see like Kurt [Busch] and Denny [Hamlin] and [Jimmie Johnson] and [Martin] and [Jeff Gordon]. I'm like, 'This sucks.' All of the sudden it was like boom, boom, boom. I had two good restarts. That's all it takes. You know, we're all out here. There are no prisoners. We're not taking any prisoners."

The only hiccup was the ending, where Martin slipped out front and slowed just enough to force Montoya to slow behind him, a tactic that also allowed Hamlin to edge into second. Immediately after the race, being interviewed on pit road, Montoya called it "a pretty dirty trick. But it's racing. Next time he does that, my brakes might get a little numb or something. I don't want to wreck him, but I would have been there and had a chance to win the race."

Later, when the emotion had ebbed and Montoya was inside the infield media center, he was more diplomatic. "I would have done the same thing," he said. "It's frustrating when they do it to you, but when you do it do somebody, it feels good. So I got screwed."

But in neither of those situations did he appear angry or vindictive. He smiled and laughed his way through both interviews. And why not? He's not in the stuffy, autocratic world of F1 anymore. He clearly loves this, every moment of it, from the challenge to the sport's relative openness to the fact that he's emerged as a Sprint Cup contender just three years after stepping out of open-wheel cars. It's almost like he's the Alfred E. Neuman of the NASCAR circuit -- what, me worry?

Nobody's worrying, not on the No. 42 team. But after Sunday, maybe everyone else should.

"We're not supposed to be here," Pattie said. "You name a person in the garage who said we were supposed to be in the Chase. You won't find one. It's been that since the beginning. Our motto has been to prove it wrong all year. It's not over. It's only one race, so let's not get excited. But the next nine will be fun."

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.