Tough Night For Montoya and Team Concludes with 33rd-Place Finish at PIR
Results from Phoenix
1. Jeff Gordon, No. 24 Chevrolet
15. Reed Sorenson, No. 41 Target Dodge
33. Juan Pablo Montoya, No. 42 Texaco/Havoline Dodge
43. David Stremme, No. 40 Coors Light Dodge
TOUGH NIGHT FOR MONTOYA AND TEAM CONCLUDES WITH 33rd-PLACE FINISH AT PIR
AVONDALE, Ariz. (April 21, 2007) --- A temperamental No. 42 Dodge left Juan Pablo Montoya and the Texaco/Havoline team scratching their heads toward the end of Saturday night’s NASCAR NEXTEL Cup race at Phoenix International Raceway (PIR), as they never managed to find the right balance with the mishandling Dodge and eventually had to call it a night with a 33rd-place finish.
It was an uphill battle all weekend for the No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates (CGRFS) Dodge at PIR, as the team worked to find speed and the right handle on its race car. Come race time early Saturday evening, Montoya lined up in 36th place to take the green flag for the 312-lap competition.
Less than 10 laps in, the racer informed his team the car was loose in the corner, tight through the middle and loose off. This same problem seemed to echo down pit road with many of the NASCAR teams competing at PIR Saturday night.
Montoya and team worked their way up to as high as 24th but never managed to break inside the top 15 the entire race. Crew chief Donnie Wingo called for multiple adjustments on pit road, including chassis and air pressure. The car seemed to initially respond to the changes but would soon regress to the same mishandling problems.
By the end of the night, Montoya told his team he was barely hanging onto the car, and the 500-mile run came to an end with the No. 42 listed in 33rd place on the final rundown. Montoya’s teammates Reed Sorenson and David Stremme finished 15th and 43rd respectively.
The No. 42 Texaco/Havoline team dropped to 16th in the overall NEXTEL Cup standings, now 132 points outside the top 10.
Up next, the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup teams will head to Talladega Superspeedway to run the Aaron’s 499 on Sunday, April 29. The race will broadcast on FOX (LIVE, 1:30 p.m. ET).
CGRFS Driver Quoteboard
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA: "It started pretty decent. We were not fast enough but we were not that bad. It just got worse as the night went on. It was loose in, tight in the center and loose off. You tried to improve one thing and the other thing gets worse and so on so there’s a little bit of a vicious circle. You fix, it gets worse, it gets better, it gets worse and it gets better. It’s just terrible. Honestly, as the race went on we got slower and slower and slower and slower and slower. But that’s racing."
About Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates
Following a strong career as a driver, Chip Ganassi created his own one-car IndyCar team in 1990 and established a partnership with a new sponsor, Target. Today, his teams include two IRL IndyCars, two Indy Pro Series cars and along with Felix Sabates he has three cars in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series, a Daytona Prototype in the world of Grand American Rolex Sports Car Series racing and two entries in the NASCAR Busch Series. Ganassi’s IndyCar teams have amassed five Championships and 50 wins since 1994; his NASCAR teams have 10 wins and a Rookie-of-the-Year title; and the Grand American team has won two of the last three Rolex Series Daytona Prototype Championships and are the two-time defending Champions of the Rolex 24 At Daytona. Chip Ganassi Racing operates out of state-of-the-art race shop facilities in Indianapolis, Ind., and Concord, N.C., with a corporate office in Pittsburgh, Pa.
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