Montoya Wins Busch Race In Mexico
Sunday March 4, 2007
Juan Pablo Montoya scored the first win of his NASCAR career today. Montoya started third and dominated the Telcel-Motorola 200 to claim his first NASCAR Busch Series win.
The win was not without controversy as Montoya spun out teammate Scott Pruett with just eight laps to go to take the lead. Montoya then survived a green-white-checkers finish to take the win over 2006 Mexico winner Denny Hamlin. Pruett recovered to finish fifth.
Given Montoya's impressive CART and Formula One racing history it is no surprise that he was able to dominate on Mexico's road course. When the NEXTEL Cup Series visits Infineon Raceway on June 24th will Montoya be able to score his first victory in NASCAR's top series?
Comments
Pruett tried to block Montoya and took his own self out.He should have known better than to block his running mate with fresh tires.He had second place no matter what!!!
Correct, It was a legitimate move.
Montoya drove a stunning race to recover from 21st after having to repeat his last pitstop.
Montoya wins in Mexico? Stop and think about it for a second. Nascar in Mexico fairly new, what a better way to promote it. Think!!!
Montoya drove a brillant race. Pruett gambled and got the result he didn’t want. He knew Montoya was inside and didn’t back off, but I guess being a “teammate” is a one-way street at Gnassi.The Gnassi “team” was so disrespectful and humiliating towards Montoya with their comments and reactions it was truly unbelievable. They should be ashamed! Perhaps Montoya should be shopping for a more professional team to drive for in 2008!
I don’t know how Montoya hit anything or anybody, judging by the commentators he was the only guy driving in the race, Rusty must be looking for a job the way he went on and on…..
Montoya drove a great race and it looked like pruett chopped that corner to me . nascar has become hit and run on the last lap anyhow ! good guy bad guy its up to nascar to be clear on rules first !!
with 8 laps to go it does not make any difference when you have a car as fast as montoya’s was suposed to be you have plenty of time to pass fairly. i beleave motoya used poor judgement in rushing the pass.
pruett did not know that montoya was coming to the inside. Montoya was going pretty hot into turn 1!!!!!. He had to lock up the brakes when he got to the corner.Montoya did drive a go race.Stewart will win in Las Vegas GO TONY GO !!!!!
Montoya is a great driver, and to come to the Nascar Busch Series and NEXTEL CUP Series it is something that race fans need to watch. Montoya was exciting in the Mexico race, racing other drivers fairly and passing in places on the track where people usually do not attempt. Road courses are boring when not much excitement happens. Montoya made it one of the most exciting races on a road course in nascar I believe. Montoya got into his teamate on an accident, and I put no fault on Montoya. Now Montoya will learn how to take on the ovals on the Nascar ciruit.
Montoya is a great driver, and to come to the Nascar Busch Series and NEXTEL CUP Series it is something that race fans need to watch. Montoya was exciting in the Mexico race, racing other drivers fairly and passing in places on the track where people usually do not attempt. Road courses are boring when not much excitement happens. Montoya made it one of the most exciting races on a road course in nascar I believe. Montoya got into his teamate on an accident, and I put no fault on Montoya.
NASCAR got what they wanted. A larger fan base for sure. Hmmmmm…. Oh what a shock. I say “Go TONY!!!” (From a Stewart fan way BEFORE being Stewart fan was even halfway OK).
That’s just how he is, big mouth stuck up driver. Just look at his past record.. He’ll get his, just wait. You have to answer for all deeds..
Franklin R. Barnard……………
Pruit dove to the inside in an attempt to block Montoya. All one has to do is watch the replay to see this. Pruit owes Montoya an appologie for his comments after the race. Montoya ran a clean race.
To bad!I think the Montoya win was weak, he could have waited for the appropriate time to move past Pruit!More importantly, I think Nascar is heading toward a crash in just a few more corners itself.If this race had occurred in the United States, no problem.Having a nascar race in a forign country that has currently very suspect policies toward this country represents a huge mistake.Having been a nascar fan for over 50 years I must admit that my interest and loyalty are fading.I attend a half dozen events per year normally, but will likely scale back this year.I witnessed an event in Mexico that had more of a resembence to a soccar Game than an American Stock Car Race.No more Mexico, Canada, ESPN. and no more for the greatest driver in the world that spun his team mate to prevail.Sorry to say Nascar, Wall Street got you and you have lost me?
It was one of the most exciting Busch races that I have seen in a long time. Lets see how Montoya handles the ovals. He has certainly proved that he can road race.
One question, how can 42 cars perform so completely opposite of 1? Montoya did a great job, but I think you could have put any of the the other 42 drivers in that car and they would have won.
Give Denny Hamlin credit, he could have turned Montoya on two occasions but played gentlemanly.
Pruett has always been a big mouth. Teammate? A one race deal because he drives on road courses, he sure does not spend much time in NASCAR except for road courses. He has a history of not so fair driving experences himself. I think he cut Juan Pablo Montoya off, but that just may be because I wanted to see Juan Pablo Montoya win and Scott loose. Juan Pablo Montoya will be in NASCAR for years to come and Scott will only be back for the rare road courses. He has never even done real well on thse rare races. Best of luck to Juan.
Juan Pablo did not cause that accident, Scott cut down more than he had previously. Montoya by far had the best car, and he is a very good road racer. Duh how about his F-1 experience! Montoya was like a rocket ship with those new tires. I wonder just how many crew chiefs that ahve a good driver and a good car, but just cna not quite get by other cars, will try and copy that pit strategy? Pruett wanted a 1-2 Canassi finish, but he wanted to be first. If he was going to pull over and let Montoya past, he should have called his spotter or crew chief, but NO he wanted to win, which is what they all want, but the better driver, in the better car was much faster and on his bumper. Also Montoyas crew chief needs to think about where his loyalties are. Montoya did nothing wrong, look at the re-runs of it. He does deserve and apolgy from his crew chief and from Pruett. Of course Scott can not come out and say that he was actually trying to block his teammate who was fater, so do not expect that. Nor do we want NASCAR to get like F-1 where there are team orders to pull over. Great race, one of the best road races I have ever seen. How Montoya made soem of those inside passes was pretty neat.
#1
The hit on Pruett looked bad to the general public. The CYA (cover your a**)was just talk to agree with what 90% of the general public saw as a blantant punt to take out Pruett. 10% percent know full well Pruett was doing the accepted Road Race tactic. If you have just a fender ahead, it’s your corner. Pruett did take a wider than needed cut through the corner, and i think he felt JPM close to him, but wasn’t gonna roll over and let him go past. JPM did screw up some, as he thought Pruett would let him past. To me, it looked like JPM tried to get off Pruett, but was surprised by the extra wide cut of Pruett and couldn’t brake hard enough to not bump Pruett.
#2
If you are in another time zone as JPM was, having just passed 1/2 of the field, you are in a go, go, go mode. The “Red Mist” I think they call it, and Pruett was just another car to pass. If Pruett hadn’t made the move to the right in the middle of the turn, he would have been able to take the hit, which was very light, maybe not losing his spot, or worse case, JPM would have passed.
Having been an Offical for ARCA in a short tack racing series, you don’t like what happened, but you have to label it a racing incedent, and move on.
Dirty Montoya looks to be bad news. Reincarnated ugly Earnhardt who got away with murder since he was buddies with Mike Helton. I thought there were 40+ cars in the race. Turn off your video and the audio told you there was only one car on the track. This stinks.
Montoya needs to remember; what goes around, comes around. Then we can hear him say–NO FAIR!!
maybe it’s time to have all nextel drivers starting off the back with extra points allocated for every car passed,i’m a great fan of marcus ambrose,the tasmanian devil racer
I’m pretty sure he did not mean to cause any harm to Pruett, he (Pruett)shoul’ve known that Juan is the faster one. Juan Pablo is without hesitation one the best drivers in the world. It’s gonna take him some time to get used to Nascar, but as soon as he gets some more experience in Nascar he’s gonna be able to fight a Nascar Nextel Championship
First of all Juan Pablo did NOT mean to hit Pruett’s car. It is clearly shown on the replays that he[Pruett]was the one that closed the door on juan. I would just take it as one more race incident, and besides, Juan Pablo was gonna win the race anyway. he was the fastest driver. Hooray for Juan He really deserved that race.
I didn’t know we had so many NASCAR experts. Were all of you watching the same race?
I didn’t know we had so many NASCAR experts watching. My question is, were you all watching the same race?
Although, I do agree with you last chance on some of these so called experts. My question is how many last chances are you giving? We thought you’re not watching Nascar any longer.
I’m like the rest of you morons, I just can’t quit watching, but sometimes I get fed up and turn it off for a while.