Colombian driver good for NASCAR

Friday, Feb. 16, 2007 | 7:15 a.m.

Team owner Chip Ganassi has made it known on more than one occasion that he plans to bring Juan Pablo Montoya along slowly in his rookie season in the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series.

But anyone who has followed Montoya's career since he broke into the American open-wheel racing ranks in 1999 knows that he is a quick study.

Montoya, a 31-year-old Colombian, joined Ganassi's CART team as a 23-year-old rookie, winning seven races and the series championship. A year later he won the Indy 500 in his first visit to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

After two years in CART, Montoya made the jump to Formula One with BMW Williams and won the Italian Grand Prix in his 15th F1 start. In six seasons in F1, he won seven races and finished on the podium 30 times in 95 starts.

Montoya called Ganassi last summer and asked about the driver vacancy in Ganassi's No. 42 Texaco/Havoline Dodge. In July, Ganassi stunned the NASCAR Nation when he announced that he had hired Montoya to become the first driver to move from Formula One to NASCAR's Nextel Cup Series.

Although Montoya's transition from the highly sophisticated F1 machines to the full-bodied stock cars has gone better than expected, he said not to expect too much too soon.

"I hope I can have some success," said Montoya, who posted the fourth-fastest qualifying time for Sunday's Daytona 500. "Is it going to happen this year? I don't know. Probably on the road courses I can do a good job and get good results and I think the smaller ovals will be good.

"For me, it's just hard to say, 'Yeah, I'm going to go out there, I'm going to kick everybody's ass.' Do I want to do that? Yeah, of course I want to do that, but you've got to be a bit realistic."

Off the track, Montoya's arrival in NASCAR has been hailed by the sanctioning body and by his fellow drivers, who realize his presence will expose the sport not only to the Hispanic community in the United States, but to an international audience.

"I don't think there's any question he's a superstar - certainly in auto racing," Ganassi said. "I don't know about NASCAR yet, but it's great to have a guy like that around."

Montoya, meanwhile, said he sees the move to NASCAR as just another challenge - not unlike moving from the Formula series to CART or from CART to Formula One.

"It's probably as big a challenge (as) when I went from CART to Formula One," he said. "Everything was different: the cars, technology, everything changed. Here it's the same thing. It's a tough challenge, but it's exciting."

Montoya said he is hoping his reputation as being an aggressive driver in his open-wheel days will help him win over some NASCAR fans.

"I'm a guy that likes driving the wheels off the race car," he said. "I'll race hard, I'll have a little respect for the guys I'm racing against and I think the fans will like that.

"I think you're going to see some fans that think (my being in NASCAR is) a great thing and some other good ol' boys that say, 'We don't want you.' I've been really welcomed here by everybody. It's been awesome."

Back to the Brickyard

Michael Andretti, who finished third in last year's Indy 500, announced this week that he would return to the cockpit and make his 16th career Indy 500 start this May.

Andretti, 44, finished behind race winner Sam Hornish Jr. and Andretti's son, Marco, in last year's race. He retired from driving full time in 2003 and is winless in 15 career Indy 500 starts.

"Last year when I returned, at first it was all about getting to race with Marco," he said of racing at Indy. "Then we both had a shot at winning it and I knew it would be very tough for me to walk away knowing that I'm still very capable of winning that race."

The number of Indianapolis 500 winners attempting to qualify for Saturday's NASCAR Busch Series race at Daytona (Juan Pablo Montoya and Sam Hornish Jr.)

"We feel like we've got a race car good enough to win the 500. I just need about 495 miles of experience and then we'll go for it the last five miles and try to do it."

David Gilliland,who will start his first Daytona 500 on Sunday from the pole

Brian Hilderbrand can be reached at 259-4089 or at bh@lasvegassun.com.