Patience, skill aid Montoya win

The rookie looked like a master winning his first NASCAR Nextel Cup race.

SONOMA, Calif. (AP) — Juan Pablo Montoya might be a NASCAR rookie, but he is a road-course master.

Not known for his patience, the Colombian driver showed plenty of it Sunday. He used his well-honed road-racing skill to save his tires, stretch his fuel to the limit, and win the Toyota/Save Mart 350 for his first NASCAR Nextel Cup victory.

Team owner Chip Ganassi, who lured Montoya back to America from Formula One, was as impressed as anyone by the win and the way Montoya did it.

“One of the nice things, working with him again, is he’s matured in a way as a race driver that you could not write in a movie,” said Ganassi, for whom Montoya won the 1999 CART championship and the 2000 Indianapolis 500.

“He’s a lot calmer, if you can imagine that. He actually came on the radio today and said, ‘It’s a little too early to race these guys.’ I was looking at [crew chief Donnie] Wingo and he was looking at me. Juan’s a changed man, all in a positive way.”

A first for road circuit

Montoya, who qualified a disappointing 32nd in the 43-car field, was the first driver to win on the Northern California road circuit starting further back than 13th.

Montoya, who jumped from Formula One to the stock car circuit late last season, got his first Cup win in his 17th start and gave Ganassi his first win in NASCAR’s top series since Jamie McMurray won in October 2002.

“It’s huge,” Montoya said. “I would say right now it’s the biggest thing I’ve done. In open-wheel, that’s what I was meant to be winning in. In stock cars, I wasn’t.

“To get our first win in our first year is huge. We know we’re a little bit behind on some of the ovals, but I think this is a big boost for everybody working in the shop.”

Series points leader Jeff Gordon overcame a 41st-place start to finish just behind Greg Biffle and Tony Stewart in seventh with a strategic effort in the first road race for NASCAR’s new Car of Tomorrow.

Gordon, who became a father for the first time Wednesday when his daughter, Ella Sofia, was born, and Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson, the reigning Cup champion, were both banned from practice and qualifying Friday and had to start from the rear of the field after NASCAR inspectors found their cars had illegally modified front fenders.

Face more penalties

Both drivers and their crew chiefs face more penalties from NASCAR in the next few days, but they ran hard to overcome their handicapped start Sunday. Johnson’s fuel strategy didn’t work as well as Gordon’s and, after getting into the top 10 for a while, he finished 17th.

Montoya, whose only other NASCAR victory came earlier this year in a Busch Series race on the road course in Mexico City, passed McMurray, who now drives for Roush Fenway Racing, eight laps from the end. He easily stayed in front of runner-up Kevin Harvick in the 110-lap event on the 1.99-mile, 12-turn course.

“I was very surprised by the level of the drivers here on the road course,” Montoya said. “In Mexico, we had a really good car and the top five cars were really strong. But, behind that, it was really easy.”

Montoya was running third, trailing leader McMurray and Harvick and desperately conserving fuel with 18 laps to go. But he passed Harvick on lap 92 and began to track down McMurray.

“The top 20 was really like, phew. You had to work for your money,” he said.

“What really paid off at the end was I was just running behind Kevin, saving the tires and trying to keep up with him. I did that for 10, 15 laps and I started pushing, I started making up ground on them and that’s when everything fell into place.”