Winning the pole for Sunday’s Brickyard 400 is only a small step in Juan Pablo Montoya’s quest to get his first oval win in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup series.
“We've got to execute and see what happens,” said Montoya who won the Indy 500 in 2000. “Do I want to win? Of course I want to win. We've got to see what happens. If somebody has a better car and they have a better pit stop or pass us, they deserve to win. It's freakin' 400 miles; it's not like a three-lap shoot-out.” No matter what is said, or done, Montoya cannot forget the pain of losing at the 2.5 mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway due to a pit lane speeding violation although he had the best car here last year leading 116 laps of the 160-laps race. The Colombia-born driver’s lap of 49.375 seconds (182.278 mph) was narrowly faster than the 49.412 (182.142mph) of Jimmie Johnson, a three-time of the Brickyard 400. Montoya has the best shot of three drivers to be the first winner of the Brickyard 400 and the Indy 500 including Jacques Villeneuve and Sam Hornish Jr. Johnson said “to be as close as we were to Juan was a good accomplishment for us. I was really proud of what I did, because yesterday I continued to make mistakes, I would get three of the four corners right and I couldn't get all four right. So I made sure today that I did my job and maybe left a little on the table because I wanted to be very line specific and not make a mistake. But so maybe I could have squeaked a little more out or it would have led to a mistake.”
Talking about squeaking, Jacques Villeneuve was the 43rd and final qualified driver. “I am very excited now that we have qualified the Dollar General Toyota into the Brickyard,” Villeneuve said. “We focused on the set up for qualifying during yesterday’s practices. The first practice I just worked on getting used to a stock car here. During the second session, we worked on the handling. The car’s balance was quite tight as we finished and the team made adjustments afterwards. I didn’t know exactly how the car would handle on the timed lap today. It definitely went from tight to loose. Knowing now how it would handle, I think I could have gotten a lot more out of the car. It is very exciting to look forward now to practicing it and getting it ready for tomorrow’s race.” Mark Martin was third in another Chevrolet followed Jamie McMurray, Montoya’s teammate at Earnhardt Ganassi Racing. Gregg Biffle had the fastest Ford in seventh and Martin Truex, Jr. had the fastest Toyota in 12th place. David Gilliland, Casey Mears, David Stremme, and J.J. Yeley failed to Qualify. The weather forecast for Sunday’s 400 calls for a hot humid day with a chance of thunder storms.
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