INDIANAPOLIS -- The red and white car sat in the rear of the garage area, its hood up, its right-rear corner split open like a used candy wrapper. The side of the vehicle was so marked up that it was difficult to make out the 42. Crewmen with saws cut away jagged pieces of sheet metal, and then rolled the crippled Chevrolet into the upper bay of the transporter for the journey home. The roar of competition still emanated from the asphalt at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but Juan Montoya's effort was finished early.

From great to tragic

With 11 laps remaining, Juan Montoya went from race contender to a heap of scrap metal.

• Watch the crash

Again. One year after a pit-road speeding penalty scuttled a victory that seemed a near-certainty, a crash in traffic Sunday left Montoya and crew chief Brian Pattie lugging a truckload of what-ifs back to Charlotte along with their wrecked race car. He wasn't quite as dominant as he was last season, when he led 116 laps and enjoyed a five-second lead on the field before a speeding violation relegated him to 11th place. But Montoya was still plenty good enough, pacing a race-high 86 circuits Sunday until everything went wrong following a late pit stop when Montoya took four tires, and six others took two.

The results were disastrous. Montoya struggled to gain any ground in the dirty air, and coming off Turn 4 slapped the outside wall with 11 laps remaining. Trying to immediately get to pit road, he collected the vehicle of Dale Earnhardt Jr., and coasted into the garage area with a totaled race car that would eventually be credited with a 32nd-place result. Montoya left without comment, and was likely on an airplane home when Earnhardt Ganassi teammate Jamie McMurray hoisted the winged, golden brick trophy in Victory Lane.

"We didn't have the fastest car," McMurray said on the winner's traditional pace-car lap around the track. "The 42 had the fastest car."

That had to offer little solace to Montoya, snake bitten for a second consecutive year. And yet, Indianapolis is a place that seems to breed these endlessly frustrating quests, near-quixotic pursuits that move almost seamlessly from one year into another, weaving a fiber of disappointment and angst. Time and time again we've seen it, whether it's Michael Andretti chasing for 16 years an Indianapolis 500 victory that would never come, or Rusty Wallace finishing as Brickyard runner-up three times, or drivers like Lloyd Ruby and Gary Bettenhausen coming to the corner of 16th Street and Georgetown road again and again each May and never getting to taste the winner's swig of milk.

Oh it's a beautiful place, all right, steeped in tradition and history, and the sight of its green-glass pagoda tower rising up from the landscape is enough to give any race fan chills. But all the goose-bump moments belie the fact that Indianapolis can be a terribly cruel place, a track that has teased and tantalized some of the world's greatest drivers to the point where goals morph into flat-out obsessions. Tony Stewart surely experienced that for the 11 years he chased Indianapolis glory across two different series before his emotional breakthrough in 2005. Others like Paul Tracy and Mark Martin and even Mario Andretti -- who in 29 attempts never earned a second Indy 500 title to go with the one he won in 1969 -- can surely relate.

It can build you up, break you down, and spit you out. No question the No. 42 team experienced that this year, after raising eyebrows with their speed at a Goodyear tire test here in April, bringing the same car back to the Brickyard, and pacing the weekend's first two practices before winning the pole. No wonder Montoya climbed out of his wrecked race car and immediately skipped town. No wonder Pattie, normally one of the most accessible crew chiefs in the Cup garage area, issued only a three-sentence statement through a public relations representative that let you know he was beating himself up.

"Bad call. Crew chief error," he said. "We should have taken two tires."

It would be difficult to blame him for taking four, given how good his race car had been, given that Montoya was in the lead coming to pit road, and given that that they had 18 laps and more fresh rubber to make up the difference between seventh and first. "If you're the leader and you have a real balanced car, it's hard not to take four tires," said Kevin Manion, McMurray's crew chief. In truth, car owner Chip Ganassi was splitting his strategies, urging the No. 1 team to take two tires after he learned that the No. 42 was taking four. Either way, he figured, he had a chance to win.

"We'll see in about 15 or 20 minutes whether we made the right call," Montoya radioed before the restart. Soon afterward, it was calamity. "I can't do anything!" he screamed, pinned down by the turbulent air of traffic. Then he bounced off the wall near the pit-road entrance, and turned down the race track so quickly that he swept up Earnhardt in his wake.

"I don't know how he got into the fence, but I wish he could have managed to get a little further clear of everybody when he was heading to the pits," said Earnhardt, who wound up 27th. "Maybe he was, hell, I don't know. ... I didn't even see him hit the wall. He came flying across Marcos [Ambrose's] hood in a dead hurry to get the car to pit road. I didn't have nowhere to go."

So while McMurray held off Kevin Harvick for a victory that gave the Daytona 500 champion a sweep of the year's two most prominent NASCAR events, Montoya could only absorb another cruel blow in what's been a cruel season. McMurray, a big believer in fate, felt this was "Juan's weekend," given the No. 42 team's strength at the April tire test and the way Montoya performed in the course of three days. But Sunday was also another chapter in an all-too familiar story, one of crashes and breakdowns that have left one of last year's best programs 22nd in points and out of championship contention.

"For anybody that can lead that many laps of a race, they certainly had the best car," McMurray said. "But it's been their year, though. I would guess they're not shocked by what happened. Because it just seems like they've had a lot of bad luck."

Ganassi was somewhat less empathetic. "What do I say to Juan and Brian? They should have taken two [tires]," he said. "I don't know. Look, it takes a team to win in this sport. [Manion] will tell you that he and Brian Pattie are like brothers. Jamie will tell you he and Juan ... are an open book, and they help each other all weekend. This is a win for the team. ... The team wins and the team loses, and today was certainly a mixed-emotions day in that respect. But without the No. 42 team, the No. 1 car wouldn't have won, I don't think."

But it wouldn't be Indianapolis without someone going home brokenhearted, left to ponder another lost opportunity at the world's most famous race track. For every Jeff Gordon, a local product winning the inaugural Brickyard, there's a Wallace, leading 114 laps in 2000 before getting nipped by Bobby Labonte at the end. For every Buddy Lazier, winning the Indy 500 in 1996 with a broken back, there's a Ralph DePalma, leading by two laps in 1912 before his car broke and he had to be pushed across the finish line. For every McMurray there's a Montoya, his 2000 Indianapolis 500 triumph no help to him as another chance to claim that first oval-track win in a stock car gets away.

"I feel for Juan, especially since his teammate didn't have the dominant car all day," said minority car owner Felix Sabates. "[The No. 1 team] just made some good pit calls, and Jamie's kissing the bricks and Juan is kissing the window in his airplane. I feel bad for Juan. He must be devastated. But like I said, he's a professional. Once he lands in Miami [Sunday night], he'll be over it."

That's one of Montoya's greatest strengths -- he's always had an uncanny ability to let things go and move on, even bitter disappointments like his Brickyard results of the past two years. But if anything will test that, Indianapolis will. It torments people. It toys with drivers. And it brings them back year after year, looking for more.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.