Montoya, driver of the #42 Target Chevy, wins the pole on his way to a 2nd place finish at New Hampshire Getty Images/Jason Smith
The weekend couldn’t have gone much better for Juan Montoya and his #42 Target team. Sure he could have won the race, and he had a shot too had he bumped, race winner Mark Martin out of the way. However he did win the pole, lead the most laps, and raised himself seven places in points in the first week of the NASCAR playoffs. Not a bad way to start his first ever chase for the Championship.
This is even more impressive when we consider that Montoya has an average finish at this track of 20.6. Talk about getting it right at the right time. In NASCAR, unlike most other pro sports, there are moral victories; this playoff system is all about putting yourself in position to run for the tile at Homestead in nine more weeks. Bu running this strong out of the gate, Montoya has done just that.
Montoya started Sunday 11th in points, and 40 points behind leader Martin. He will leave New Hampshire 4th in points and 50 points behind Martin. That is a good day and being within 50-60 points of the leader at this point of the chase is a good place to be moving forward.
Montoya ran this race very aggressively, and since the end of this race was littered with multiple cautions and double file restarts it seemed likely that Montoya would push Martin out of the way for his first oval win. Since Martin has helped Juan make the transition to NASCAR racing, Juan chose to respect Martin and run him clean.
Juan’s strong run at New Hampshire is another case of when Martin says something people should listen. Last week after the Richmond race Martin said that Montoya would be a force to be reckoned within the chase, through Round One that is certainly the case.
Next up for Montoya is Dover where average finish is 24th. In the spring race he was able to qualify third but finished 30th. He will need to qualify strong again and really work on his finish.
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