Juan Pablo Montoya News

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 ...

Juan Pablo Montoya learned a lot in his first Nextel Cup race: how to run in traffic, communicate with his crew and climb out of a flame-engulfed stock car ready to explode. The former Formula One and Indy car star making the jump to NASCAR finished 34th in the final race of the season Sunday, ending in a fiery spin 16 laps short of the finish after Ryan Newman nudged ...

Cameras followed Juan Pablo Montoya all across the NASCAR circuit the past three weeks. On Friday, he gave everyone something to watch. The Formula One defector qualified for his first Nextel Cup race, placing him on NASCAR's biggest stage in Sunday's season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. The former open-wheel star could have had a guaranteed spot in the field in Chip Ganassi Racing's No. 42 Dodge, which Casey Mears has been racing all season. But Ganassi decided to ...

It would be hard to blame Kevin Harvick if he wanted the NASCAR Busch Series season to go on forever. Harvick dominated the field again Saturday in the O'Reilly Challenge 300 at Texas Motor Speedway, winning for the second straight week and third time in his last four starts. It was the ninth Busch victory of what is already a championship season for the Nextel Cup star. To cap another great day for Harvick, after being told ...

The caller sounded a tiny bit confused, greeting Juan Pablo Montoya as ``Juan Carlos.'' Montoya just laughed it off. Apparently, he hasn't made a name for himself in NASCAR quite yet. Give him time, he says. ``I get up to speed pretty easy,'' Montoya said. Continuing his transition from open-wheel to stock car racing, Montoya spent Tuesday and Wednesday testing at Homestead-Miami Speedway, site of the season-ending Ford 400 and ...

Juan Pablo Montoya will make his NASCAR debut in a Busch Series race at Memphis Motorsports Park, his team announced Tuesday. Montoya will drive the No. 42 Dodge for Chip Ganassi Racing in the race on Oct. 28. The decision was made after the Colombian tested at the Memphis track last week. That follows a pattern that Ganassi has been using with the former Formula One driver of testing at a track in preparation of its upcoming race. ...

Juan Pablo Montoya's introduction to stock cars will include the former Indianapolis 500 winner and Formula One star taking part in a Nextel Cup open test next week at Homestead-Miami Speedway. The test, scheduled Oct. 16-18, is an important one for the Colombian driver, expected to make his Cup debut Nov. 19 in the season-finale at the Homestead track. ``I'm excited to get some more laps in the Nextel Cup ...

Four-time Cup champion Jeff Gordon once swapped cars with Juan Pablo Montoya for an exhibition run. The time the stock car star and the Formula One racer spent in each other's cars at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was brief and told them little about how they would fare in a race. But, now, Montoya has left F1 behind and is taking aim at competing with Gordon and the rest of the Cup drivers for championships. He got ...

Maybe these stock cars won't be so hard for Juan Pablo Montoya, after all. The Formula One defector completed an impressive stock car racing debut Friday night, overcoming an early accident to finish third in the ARCA race at Talladega Superspeedway. ``I never had so much fun in my life,'' Montoya said. ``It's freaky. You are always on the edge, but it was fun.'' The race was called because of darkness 14 laps from the finish, interrupting a ...

Juan Pablo Montoya got the easy part out of the way, qualifying second Thursday for his stock-car debut in the ARCA Food World 250 at Talladega Superspeedway. Now, the former Formula One star finds out how he fares in heavy stock-car traffic. ``Qualifying here makes your life easy,'' the former Indianapolis 500 champion said. ``It makes you look really good, because you were flat (out) the whole time. They told ...