Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: Jeff Gordon to swap cars with Montoya at Indy

Tuesday, June 3, 2003 | 10:04 a.m.

Brian Hilderbrand covers motor sports for the Las Vegas Sun. His motor sports notebook appears Friday. He can be reached at bh@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4089.

Driving on the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway is nothing new to NASCAR Winston Cup star Jeff Gordon.

But Gordon, a three-time winner of the Brickyard 400, will get a different view of the track next week when he swaps racecars for a day with Formula One driver Juan Pablo Montoya.

Gordon will trade his 3,400-pound Chevrolet Monte Carlo for Montoya's 1,200-pound Williams BMW FW24 for a few exhibition laps on the speedway's 2.606-mile Grand Prix course next Wednesday. The road course utilizes a part of the 2.5-mile oval, but the F1 cars run clockwise on the circuit as opposed to the Winston Cup cars and Indy cars, which run counter-clockwise on the oval.

"I'm fascinated with the technology involved in Formula One racing and am excited about the chance to drive an F1 car," Gordon said. "It should be a lot of fun to see firsthand what F1 drivers face during a lap at Indianapolis Motor Speedway."

Montoya, who won the 2000 Indianapolis 500, also will take some laps in Gordon's Winston Cup car. Montoya is expected to bring his 2002 FW24 as opposed to the FW25 he is racing this season.

"The experience would be very interesting and driving a big, heavy NASCAR car would certainly be different," said Montoya, who won Sunday's Monaco Grand Prix. "I don't think Jeff should be concerned that I will take away his job but I would enjoy driving his Chevrolet and letting him take my BMW Williams F1 car for a drive on Indy's road course."

Speed Channel will televise the exhibition, designed to promote next month's Brickyard 400 and the September F1 race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, live on June 11. Gordon and Montoya will be miked for sound and both cars will carry multiple on-board cameras.

But Busch struggled with the handling on his No. 97 Ford the entire race and had to settle for a 15th-place finish.

"It was just a long day from the get-go," Busch said. "We never got the car to turn for some reason. We brought the wrong car; we shouldn't have brought a short-track car. We won't make that mistake again.

"We were just tight, tight, tight and I'm not sure what was different from happy hour. We all need to do better, including me, because we just can't have these days in a championship run."

Busch slipped from to fourth to fifth in points and now trails Roush Racing teammate Matt Kenseth by 247 points. Five weeks ago, following his victory at California Speedway, Busch trailed Kenseth by 168 points.

According to the website, the race will be run on Labor Day weekend, a date traditionally reserved for the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway.

Spectator gates open at 6 p.m. and qualifying starts at 6:30.