Montoya captures pole at Talladega

Associated Press

TALLADEGA, Ala.

Juan Pablo Montoya grabbed a sliver of the spotlight focused on the three championship contending drivers by winning the pole at Talladega Superspeedway.

Montoya, who is not in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship, turned a lap at 184.640 mph to better Clint Bowyer, Kurt Busch and all the contenders in Saturday’s qualifying session.

While the focus should be on Montoya’s bid to win his first race on an oval track, he knows it will instead be on the middle of the pack, where championship contenders Jimmie Johnson, Denny Hamlin and Kevin Harvick will start today’s race.

“If you are in the Chase and you are not in the top three [in standings], nobody even cares,” Montoya said.

It’s the downside of the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship, which pits the top-12 drivers against each other in a 10-race push to the title.

Today’s race at Talladega is the beginning of the final four-race stretch, and the field has separated itself so that only three drivers have a realistic shot at winning the title.

And none of them was as good as Montoya in qualifying.

Harvick qualified 14th, Hamlin 17th and Johnson 19th for a race that could be pivotal in shaking up the standings. Because of the unpredictability at Talladega, the rankings could look dramatically different by the time the checkered flag falls.

Johnson, the four-time defending series champion, has a six-point lead over Hamlin. Harvick, winner of the April race at Talladega and the July race at Daytona, is 61 points back.

“I think it’s very possible for [Harvick] to leapfrog both of us this weekend,” Hamlin said. “I think it’s a complete wild card. We just don’t know what’s going to happen.”

For starters, the Chase contenders will have to work their way to the front of the field, where Montoya will lead Bowyer and Busch at the green flag.

Bowyer, who is 12th in the Chase standings, is still searching for a win that will give him some redemption from the championship-crippling penalty he received when his winning car from New Hampshire failed inspection.

And Busch, who is ninth in the standings, wants a long overdue victory in a restrictor-plate race.