October 06, 2006

The Pope Runs Fast

Six years ago, Juan Pablo Montoya won the Indianapolis 500.

Last year, he won three Formula One races.

Today, he finished third in his first stockcar race.

He'd never driven at a superspeedway, never driven a 6000lb stockcar with 41 other opponents, never really experienced drafting the way they do it in NASCAR-type cars, and he did a great job.

At one point, he got caught up in a wreck (he took a car hard in his right door). The way the hit came, he easily could have lost it all over the track. Nope, he gathered his #4 car up, straightened it back out, and continued on with nary a bobble. Truthfully, if a similar accident had happened in F1, his car would have be DOA, even if he kept it from wrecking.

He impressed the dickens out of me. At the end of the season last year, I said that he could be a dark-horse for 'best driver in F1', along with Alonso, Schumacher and Raikkonen (in no particular order). It's looking more and more like his driving skill is natural... put him in a car, and he can drive the heck out of it.

At least, in ARCA/REMAX. That means it's the minor leagues... lets see how he does at Daytona in... March, is it? Still, great job.

And one other thing: in the post-race interview, he looked positively giddy! "The most fun I've ever had racing." It sounds like his pit-radio conversations were hilarious, too... too bad they don't let you listen in. It would have been a laugh.

Finally, there's one last thing I've got to point out. Somewhere at Talledega Superspeedway, there's a track worker with a big bullseye painted on the front of his jumpsuit. There were big accidents in the race: the one that Juan Pablo was involved in, and The Big One that ended the event (it was getting dark, and 'Dega has no lights). In both cases, cars ended up hitting the inside wall about ten feet from where he was ducking for cover. Poor guy.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 02:38 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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