Montoya: Road America, not Infineon Raceway, a "real circuit"

Juan Pablo Montoya is the only NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver to win a race at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma as a rookie. He won the Cup race in Sonoma in 2007.
Montoya has run his share of road courses in Formula One and the old Champ Car series.
While the Cup drivers were in Sonoma for one of two road courses races on the schedule, the Nationwide Series was at Road America, a road course in Wisconsin.
Montoya was asked if he would like to run a Cup car at Road America.
“I would rather run in Road America than here, to be honest. That's a real circuit,” Montoya said.
Montoya said it’s “awkward” for him to be on a road course in the Cup cars.
"Because there's just no grip. You know what I mean?” Montoya said. “The track by itself is really slow. It's just different. Put it that way."
Montoya was 12th fastest in the final Sprint Cup Series practice on Saturday. He will start 14th in Sunday’s Sprint Cup Series race in Sonoma.
As a driver who made the switch from open-wheel cars to stock cars, Montoya was asked about Danica Patrick running in the Izod IndyCar Series and NASCAR Nationwide Series at the same time. Patrick is coming off her best Indy car finish of the season, a second place at Texas Motor Speedway. She returns to the Nationwide Series at New Hampshire International Speedway on June 26.
"I thought she was starting to do really well,” Montoya said. “In the last race she ran, you could tell she was picking up the pace and was getting better. I don't know, it will be interesting to see what happens now. She only ran big tracks so now to go to a small one it's going to be different."


Photo: Juan Pablo Montoya said Road Ameica, not Infineon Raceway, is a real circuit. He would rather race there than at the road course in Sonoma, site of Sunday's NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race.

(Credit: Robert Laberge/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Football coach?

After his third-place finish at Martinsville Speedway in Virginia, Juan Pablo Montoya was asked about the comment Bob Griese made about him and how it made Montoya feel after being spoken in that light by a football coach.
There are so many things wrong with that question, but let's start with the football coach part. Griese was a Hall of Fame college quarterback at Purdue, a great NFL quarterback for the Miami Dolphins and a pretty mediocre football commentator for ABC. But he has no official experience as a football coach.
As for how Griese's comments made Montoya feel, it's surprising Montoya wasted his breath with an answer.
"Football coach? I don't know who it is," Montoya said. "Somebody mentioned it to me. I don't really care to tell you the truth. Yeah, I don't. I could say I spent the last three hours eating tacos, but I was actually driving a car. But that's okay, I don't care."
Good for Montoya. He shouldn't care what Griese said. It's even funnier that Montoya doesn't even know who Griese is.
What is a shame is that a sportswriter from assumably Virginia doesn't know or more likely mistook Griese for a football coach.
As for the race and the Chase standings, Montoya talked about his chances of catching Jimmie Johnson, the leader in the Chase.
Denny Hamlin won the race at Martinsville. Johnson was second and extended his lead with four races to go in the Chase. Montoya jumped back into the top five after the Martinsville race, so Chris Speilman, Griese's broadcasting partner at ABC, shouldn't have any trouble finding Montoya. But time is running out and Montoya doesn't think he has a chance of catching Johnson.
"I'm too far. It doesn't matter," Montoya said. "You've got to say the 48 team (Johnson) is doing an amazing job and they deserve everything they're doing right now. Do we want to beat them? Yeah, we want to beat them. But it's not over.
"You've got to be honest, you go to Talladega and he might have a bad race, or even the race after. He might blow a motor have a bad pit stop. There's still a lot of racing to go, so anything can happen. We've just got to keep running hard and hope for the best."

Photo: Jimmie Johnson led five times for 164 laps, but finished second in the TUMS Fast Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway. (Photo Credit: John Harrelson/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Griese told to bite his tongue

Bob Griese’s comment about Juan Pablo Montoya “eating a taco” was ignorant and stupid. Not because it was culturally insensitive, but because it was grossly inaccurate.
Montoya is Columbian. And while tacos are popular food choices in America and parts of Mexico, they are hardly as popular his home country.
What’s more, a quick check on Montoya’s Twitter account and it’s easy to find out that he is a fan of Philly cheese steak sandwiches, cereal and pizza.
In all likelihood, Montoya was probably out ordering a pizza after his disastrous race at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, if he was eating anything at all.
Griese has apologized repeatedly for his comments, an obvious directive from ABC executives. But how sincere are his apologies? Is he apologizing for being insensitive or just plain stupid?
The bigger question is how insensitive is his remark? Montoya is all but of the running to win the Chase, but so is about half the Chase field.
If Griese was asked where is Brian Vickers, and he responded “out to lunch,” would there be such an outrage? Probably not. Maybe if Griese said Vickers was eating a Wonder bread sandwich or a box of Oreos, it might upset the moral majority.
Griese made a silly comment, but in all honesty, it wasn’t that bad. Let Griese finish his humble pie and let Montoya eat pizza.

Photo: Juan Pablo Montoya has a laugh in the garage before practice for the TUMS Fast Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway. (Photo Credit: Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)