Montoya opens the door for open wheel followers
When Juan Pablo Montoya made his switch from Formula One Car Racing to NASCAR, he had no idea he will be adding a whole new lot of followers to the game as well. Of course, his fans have followed him from Formula One to NASCAR but there are a whole lot of others who have simply checked in because they were interested to know about the shift but then the excitement in every lap in a NASCAR race compared to one in a Formula One Race has just roped them in. Various surveys have reported repeatedly that in the 15 months since Montoya made the transfer.. the number of new NASCAR followers has grown faster than ever.
Recently, Montoya came up with a warning for those considering NASCAR: It’s a lot harder than it looks.
“This is not easy,” Montoya said. “I think the person who thinks that it is easy should look again, because I think this is pretty hard. And now, with the full fields, even getting into the race is very, very hard.”
It seems he has taken the plight of Hornish seriously, who failed to qualify for the NASCAR races.
“When Sam went into Turn 1, I knew right then he wasn’t going to make the race,” Montoya said. “He never arced the corner. He was just like an open-wheeler and went straight to the bottom, and he just came out going high out of the corner. With these cars, you have to arc them and work a little more.
“I knew as soon as we got to the track that he was in trouble because you don’t hear about him testing here and testing there. That is one of the fastest mile-and-a-halfs we go to, and you have to get after it, and it’s not easy. If he doesn’t test, it’s going to take him longer to figure this out.”
For now Montoya is curious about how Hornish progresses and decides about his future with the series.
“Right now, I would think he’s thinking about bailing (on NASCAR),” Montoya said. “But he’s just got to be patient. I asked him why he wasn’t running Busch, and he said his team doesn’t have enough people. If they want him next year here, he should be running as many races as he can right now. He needs seat time and he needs miles.”
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