Montoya to face his toughest challenge

October 16, 7:32 PMDetroit NASCAR ExaminerJosh Lobdell

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Montoya prepares to practice his #42 Lysol Chevy, Thursday at Lowe's Motor Speedway Getty Images/Jason Smith

As we see the maturation of Juan Montoya’s stock car career, with a fin run through the first four chase races, he will now face his toughest challenge Saturday night at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.

Of the ten tracks in the chase, Juan has the worst finishing average at this track. His average finish at this track is 27.4. The only thing going in Juan’s favor is a strong finish here is last spring’s Coke 600. He was able to qualify 9th and finish 8th in that race.

However we may be seeing the end of this magical run as Juan was only able to qualify 18th for Saturday night’s race. When Juan quality’s poorly at this track, he tends to finish poorly. That may be due to his inability to control his passion for this sport. Juan likes to run up front, and when the car is not running well, or things happen outside his control he has a hard time adapting.

Beyond all that though, it seems many NASCAR fans are already willing to award Jimmie Johnson his fourth consecutive title. I still think that Mark Martin and Montoya have a viable chance to beat Johnson, but, since Johnson is on the pole for this week’s race the odds remain long for both men.