As someone never intimidated by the mystique of the track, it seems odd Juan Pablo Montoya was introduced to Indianapolis Motor Speedway as a wide-eyed tourist.
Indianapolis Motor Speedway isn't tough, says Juan Pablo Montoya, who can become the first driver to win the Indy 500 and the Brickyard 400.
A few months before his rookie CART season with Chip Ganassi Racing, one of the Colombian's first American field trips was to the Brickyard. Montoya soaked in the history of a track museum chock-full of memorabilia dating to 1909 and then got a low-speed tutorial of a high-speed palace.
"I took the little tour bus around the track and did the whole nine yards," he said. "It was kind of funny."
Montoya, a collector who keeps a model of every car he has raced in a warehouse in Miami, has returned to the museum several times. He has never been awed by the 2.5-mile oval that surrounds it, though, and that lack of sentimentality might be the secret to his success.
A victory in Sunday's Brickyard 400 would make him the first to win in an Indy car and a stock car at Indy. But whether it's swigging milk or kissing the bricks, it would be all the same to the Earnhardt Ganassi Racing driver.
Unlike a plethora of Sprint Cup stars (Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon, Ryan Newman) who grew up idolizing Indy, Montoya knew of the track only because Roberto Guerrero (a close family friend) had raced there. He had to be convinced by car owner Ganassi that running the 2000 Indianapolis 500 wouldn't detract from defending his CART championship.
Montoya led 167 of the 200 laps in one of the most dominant Indy 500 wins a decade ago. He never raced in the IndyCar Series again, but his excellence at Indy has continued since he rejoined Ganassi in NASCAR.
He finished second as a rookie in 2007 and led a race-high 116 of 160 laps last year.
"It's not hard," Montoya says of the track. "Everyone makes such a big deal out of it. They psych people out before they get to run there. But that's what we get paid to do: to drive.
"It's simple. You can do it, or you don't. I don't think there's a middle ground in racing."
There never was at the Brickyard for Montoya, who was allowed to skip the bulk of rookie orientation because he was so fast on his opening laps.
"I was as surprised as anybody," Ganassi said. "Pole speeds were 220 or 221, and he did a high 216 in his first four laps.
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SOURCE: USA Today
Nate Ryan
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