Whilst he acknowledges results can sometimes be just as hard to come by in his current position, the big, brash appeal of the US' premier stock car series is evidently very much to Montoya's liking, with overtaking less of an art form and more of a past-time as up to 40 cars go wheel-to-wheel for three hours solid. What's more, 17 of the nation's top 20 best-attended sporting events are NASCAR races, and the sport is the second-most watched on American television.
“It's harder here,” argued the Bogota native, currently sitting 19th in the championship chase out of some 67 fierce competitors. “When you run 15th, sometimes you think it sucks, but look at the big picture – 15th here is like sixth or seventh in
F1, because there are twice as many cars.
“The incredible thing is here I run 15th or 20th on average, and there are four or five weeks in the year where I have a chance of winning. In F1 if you run sixth or seventh, you run sixth or seventh the whole year.
“It doesn't matter if you're running for the lead, or for 30th, you're always racing somebody [in NASCAR]. That's much better.”
Montoya also pointed out that such is NASCAR's incredible popularity in the States, F1 barely raises a flicker on the interest scale, and whilst he rates his
McLaren successor Lewis Hamilton as a ‘good kid' and a ‘nice guy', he is blunt in pointing out that: “Go ask anybody here who is
Lewis Hamilton. Lewis who?”
Chip Ganassi team-mate and former Indianapolis 500 winner Dario Franchitti – who joined NASCAR from the IndyCar Series this season, but was almost immediately out of action with a broken ankle sustained in a 180mph collision at Talladega back at the end of April – echoed Montoya's sentiments.
“It's been a tough baptism,” reflected the Scot. “I thought it would be difficult, but I didn't realise how difficult. The good thing is I feel I know a lot more now about what to do.
![Juan Montoya. [Pic Credit image.net]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/281319.jpg)
