Montoya Strikes Bulls Eye at the Glen

Photo Credit: Rusty Jarrett/ Getty Images for NASCAR

Taking the grid for the 25th race at the Glen in the NASCAR modern era (28th since the 1957 debut of the stock car series at the New York state road course), the NASCAR Sprint Cup series readies for their final road race of 2010. Tolerating just two events per year, the special driver skills for mastering the 9-turn, 2.45 mile track provides fans with a specific enjoyment seeing their favourite drivers negotiating right turns along with the left turns.

Carl Edwards posted fastest time in qualifying but would find his stint at the from extremely short. Within the first lap, the #99 Ford was immediately displaced from the lead by the #1 Chevy of Jamie McMurray where he would lead the initial 5 laps at Watkins Glen. On the fifth lap, the Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing #1 Chevrolet was hounded his Target-sponsored teammate Juan Pablo Montoya. Conceding to the ultra-fast Colombian native, McMurray gave the #42 car pretty of room to complete the lead change. Montoya would lead through the next 20 laps around Watkins Glen

The first caution came out after a round of green on lap 29 for a stalled #07 Toyota driven by PJ Jones who would retire as result of a fuel pump failure. Unlike the NASCAR Nationwide series race which involved a major 10-car crash, the Sprint Cup event was a more subdued affair when it came to on-track carnage. However, there would be some major incidents of note transpiring deeper into the Heluva Good! Sour Cream at The Glen.

Being the 5th race left before the cut off to the Chase for the Sprint Cup, the finishes at Watkins Glen as well as the remaining rounds prior to New Hampshire are going to be very important to teams contending for the top-12 spots. On the outside of the final Chase spot, Mark Martin and Ryan Newman both made a habit to lead at least one lap for 5 valuable driver points. Both drivers also required some struggles for drivers embedded within the Chase-eligible top-12. The Heluva Good! Sour Cream at The Glen produced the circumstances Martin and Newman were looking for to aid their Chase hopes. The most significant event occurred on lap 62 when the #33 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet of Clint Bowyer encountered a driveline problem. Leaving debris on the track which drew a lap 63 caution, behind the wall repairs required of Bowyer's car took 3 laps. Clint Bowyer would gain 2 of those laps back through free passes on subsequent cautions but would ultimately finish 34th on the day. Falling to 13th in Sprint Cup series points, Mark Martin is now in the 12th place spot heading into Michigan next week.

Compacting the field, drivers eagerly fought for positions on the track through the final 1/3 of the Watkins Glen event. A result of the heightened aggression, drivers were less willing to show courtesy contributing to the final two cautions of the Heluva Good! Sour Cream at The Glen. Shortly after the debris caution, the yellow flag fell for a violent impact of the #83 Red Bull Toyota through turn 2. Driven by Boris Said during the weekend, the #83 car was accused of crowding the #14 Chevrolet of Tony Stewart through turn 1 running the Chevy wide. In an incident which had similarities to Leffler's triggering of the big wreck in the Nationwide race, Stewart forced himself back into the race surface bumping into Said. As the #83 Toyota was sent into the Armco, all other cars were able to miss the stopped Red Bull machine. Later in the garage, Boris Said testified to he did not see Stewart.

Following the lap 66 crash, another more high-profile accident collected 2 of the top contenders for the Sprint Cup. Through turn 7, Jimmie Johnson's #48 Chevrolet was sent around on lap 72 into the outside wall. While Johnson's Hendrick Motorsports car suffered minor damage from the wall impact, the #11 Toyota of Denny Hamlin would quickly get caught within the tire smoke of the #48 car. Colliding with the spun vehicle of Johnson, Hamlin made head-on contact with his #11 FedEx Toyota. Hamlin's day was at Watkins Glen was over but Johnson was able to soldier on to finish 28th. Starting the season as the driver and team to beat winning 3 of the first 5 races, Johnson has only 1 top-20 finish in the past 5 Sprint Cup race events.

Photo Credit: Chris Trotman/ Getty Images

In a similar dominating performance to Ambrose's walk away from the field in the Zippo 200 NASCAR Nationwide series race the previous day, Juan Pablo Montoya led for 74 of the Heluva Good! Sour Cream at The Glen's 90 laps. Out front through the final 28 laps, Montoya's Chevrolet pushed to over a 4 second interval over second place. It was a triumphant win for Montoya and crew chief Brian Pattie as the pairing his performed a multitude of strong runs with victory still eluding the #42 Chevrolet. Juan Pablo Montoya's 2nd win in the NASCAR Sprint Cup series since his first win at Infineon Raceway in 2007. This was Montoya's first win in a Chevrolet.

Chasing the Colombian-born racer through much of the race distance was Marcos Ambrose trying to swap at Watkins Glen. Looking to be a match for the #42 Earnhardt/Ganassi

Rounding out the top-5 at Watkins Glen was the Richard Petty Motorsports driver AJ Allmendinger and pole sitter Carl Edwards who were both driving Ford Fusions.

Next Sunday, the NASCAR Sprint Cup series will return to the two-mile race at Michigan International Speedway.


2010 NASCAR Sprint Cup
Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dip At The Glen
Race Results

Top-10

Pos #  | Car # | Driver   | Sponsor/ Car Make

1 42 Juan Pablo Montoya Target Chevrolet

2 2  Kurt Busch Miller Lite/Vortex Dodge

3 47 Marcos Ambrose Little Debbie Toyota

4 43 A J Allmendinger Insignia HDTV Ford

5 99 Carl Edwards Aflac Ford

6 1 Jamie McMurray McDonald's Chevrolet

7 14 Tony Stewart Old Spice/Office Depot Chevrolet

8 18 Kyle Busch M&M's Toyota

9 31 Jeff Burton Caterpillar Chevrolet

10 24 Jeff Gordon DuPont Chevrolet

Other Notable 

11 29 Kevin Harvick Shell/Pennzoil Chevrolet

12 39 Ryan Newman U.S.Army Chevrolet

13 17 Matt Kenseth Crown Royal Ford

19 5 Mark Martin GoDaddy.com Chevrolet

21 26 Patrick Carpentier Air Guard Ford

26 88 Dale Earnhardt Jr. National Guard/AMP Energy Chevrolet

28 48 Jimmie Johnson Lowe's Chevrolet

40 36 Ron Fellows Tommy Baldwin Racing Chevrolet

Victorious Tony Stewart feeling Heluva Good! At The Glen

Literally raining on the parade for stock car drivers, teams, and fans when the planned Sunday August 9th start of the Heluva Good! At The Glen NASCAR Sprint Cup event was pushed to Monday. As many of us are forced with busying ourselves with earning a hard day's pay, the Sprint Cup teams took to earning Sunday money. As Jimmie Johnson #48 Lowes Chevrolet led the field to the start of the 90 lap affair, Kurt Busch overpowered Johnson for the top spot and held on for 19 laps. Road race professional and Sprint Cup rookie took the helm of the race Marcus Ambrose by staying out when the majority of cars received tires and fuel. At this point, Ambrose's team were establishing themselves for a long first run which wouldn't see the #47 Toyota on pit lane until lap 43.

Early mayhem resulted as the #12 Penske Dodge of David Stremme made a dive into Watkins Glen famous busstop chicane and lost control through the grass within the corner. Creating the second caution for the race, Stremme's spinning car honed in on Jeff Gordon's Dupont machine which escaped maliciously with only light contact from the black #12 Dodge. This luck did not hold for Gordon as the #29 Shell/Pennzoil Chevrolet Impala of Kevin Harvick could not avoid the out of shape Dupont Chevrolet resulting in heavy right front contact for Harvick and a serious blow on Jeff Gordon's passenger side. While Stremme and Gordon were able to soldier on from the accident, Harvick's car spent a multitude of laps behind the wall.

For the legions of Dale Earnhardt Jr fans awaiting for the resurgence #88, the Watkins Glen race further paints the tapestry illustrating a season of misfortune. Before the race even started the season of the AMP/National Guard car has been plagued by a 2009 season with few highlights. Last year, Earnhardt and the #88 Hendrick Chevrolet came into Watkins Glen 4th in Sprint Cup points. For the 2009 season championship, Dale Earnhardt Jr entered the race weekend 23rd on the points sheet.

Once the green flag fell, the #88 Chevrolet Impala diced from its 38th place starting position, passing 13 cars in only 12 laps around the Watkins Glen race circuit. However, in course with this season's trend of good race runs materializing into poor finishes, Earnhardt Jr's car began to experience brake problems after 1/3 distance in the race. By Lap 41, Dale Earnhardt Jr's car lost braking power in turn 10 and was left heading into the back of #43 Dodge of Reed Sorenson. Without sufficient brakes, Earnhardt Jr could only turn his #88 Chevrolet into the sod along the corner of the track but was unable to avoid contact with Sorenson. This collision resulted in both cars becoming buried in the gravel runoff area where the incident attracted the third caution.

At the lap 45 restart, Kyle Busch ceased the lead for only the restart as Tony Stewart bypassed the #18 M&Ms Toyota. The younger Busch brother was never happy about the handling of his Toyota throughout the race but his pit crew would become invaluable in keeping the #18 in the upper part of the scoring board through to the checkered flag. Holding on for 11 laps, Tony Stewart's #14 Old Spice Chevrolet ran faultlessly until him and 6th place Juan Pablo Montoya made four tire pit stops. Kurt Busch and the wounded Dodge of David Stremme took turns leading the event until former Formula 1 driver Scott Speed took the spot for the first time on a road course during a Sprint Cup series event.

At lap 62, the biggest accident of the today was commenced when Kasey Kahne #9 Budweiser Dodge and Sam Hornish Jr #77 Mobil Dodge were battling through turn 9. Turn 9 at Watkins Glen had been already been a epicenter of chaos through the NASCAR Nationwide series as Jason Leffler and Joey Logano both had dramatic crashes into the retaining barriers. In Monday's Heluva Good! At The Glen, Kahne's Dodge delivered an unintentional side-by-side rub to Hornish sending the #77 Dodge off track and into the outer wall's tire barriers. Instead of drawing the car to a stop with the impact, the Sprint Cup Dodge slid sideways allowing the #77 to bounce off the tires and spun back up to the track surface. With a group of race cars rushing past, one of those cars was Jeff Gordon's Dupont Impala which was violently hammered by the #77 Dodge's rear end. The impact drove Gordon hard into the inner Armco guard rail completely compacting the #24's front. Hornish's car would also collect Jeff Burton as the vehicles' front ends collide. In spite of the severely mangled sheetmetal of those cars as well as a few cars which escaped with only slight damage, all drivers escaped this without serious injury. However, the incident's effect on Jeff Gordon's preexisting back problems were, and are likely to continue to be, a matter of concern.

Following a 20 minute red flag to clean up the scattered debris, Scott Speed enters the pits relinquishing the lead to Kyle Busch with Tony Stewart, Marcus Ambrose, Greg Biffle, and Juan Pablo Montoya rounding out the top five with when the green flag would drop again at lap 66. The next lap, Tony Stewart and his #14 Old Spice Chevy took on Busch's #18 Toyota in turn two, allowing his Hendrick engine to propel him by for the lead. This move proved to be the last lead change of the race as he led the final 27 laps to win the 2009 race at Watkins Glen. With some drama developing from fears that many of the leaders, including Stewart, would not go the distance on fuel economy, all the lead cars made the checkered flag. The #14 Chevy even had enough fuel for celebratory burnouts.

Having grabbed the pole for the 2008 Cup race and winner of the Watkins Glen Nationwide race for the last two years, Marcus Ambrose lived up to expectations by finishing second place. Rounding out the top six in order is Carl Edwards who ran a quiet yet productive race, Kyle Busch, Greg Biffle, and Juan Pablo Montoya. With Ambrose and Montoya full time NASCAR Sprint Cup drivers, hired gun road course racers found it hard in this event at Watkins Glen. Finishing best amongst the group of limited schedule runners was Max Papis in 8th place (though him and Germain Racing have included numerous ovals this season in commitment to run much of the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup schedule). Andy Lally traded his typical Grand Am sports car Porsche GT class car for The Racer's Group's (TRG) Chevrolet Impala coming home 27th, on the lead lap. Apparently, Lally was the only road course regular not to be bitten by mechanical gremlins or by the competition. Second place finisher for the 1999 At the Glen race Ron Fellows was left out of contention for a strong finish early with a faulty starter in his #09 Chevrolet. Another freelance road racer failing to score a worthy result due to mechanical issues was fan favourite Boris Said. His #08 Ford's engine was struck with overheating problems which caused him to park the car at lap 76. Concluding the road ringer bunch were PJ Jones and Tony Ave who dropped our early by a listed transmission and overheating problem. Finally, Patrick Carpentier day consisted of having his #55 NAPA Toyota used as a pinball by David Stremme and later Elliot Sadler through contact with the French-Canadian driver. Carpentier was listed running at the end, 12 laps down from the leader.

The third points win for Tony Stewart this season, the two-time Cup series champion is well in reach of clinching his birth in NASCAR's Chase for the Sprint Cup for 2009. After missing the top 12 just one year ago with Joe Gibbs Racing, Stewart's current 698 point lead over 12th place in points Matt Kenseth could secure a position by the next race at Michigan International Speedway this Sunday.