While Stewart's mastery was the main talking point, Juan Montoya's second place run was equally praiseworthy as the Colombian driver defied all those who wrote him off as an Indianapolis NASCAR rookie. From the outside of the front row of the grid the 2000 Indy 500 winner was a top ten runner all day and passed Jeff Gordon on the final restart to take third before hunting down the duelling leaders and passing Harvick with four laps remaining for his best Nextel Cup oval finish to date.
Four-times Brickyard winner Gordon finished third despite falling to 18th during a round of pitstops at the 60-lap mark while Kyle Busch, who used pit strategy to catapult himself from the midfield pack into the lead on lap 66, managed to stay at or near the front of the field to claim fourth.
Bud Pole winner Reed Sorenson led the first 14 laps prior to the first of nine caution periods and completed the top five with Mark Martin sixth and Harvick a dejected seventh. Harvick's RCR teammate Jeff Burton, the top Toyota of Bill Davis Racing's Dave Blaney and the leading Ford of Matt Kenseth rounded out the top ten.
A combination of a ‘green' race track, suspect tyre wear and some pretty impetuous driving led to a number of crashes, starting on lap 14 when Jeff Green cut a tyre and slammed the turn three wall. No sooner had the dust cleared from that wreck third place starter Ryan Newman pounded the turn four wall after losing the rear end of his #12 Penske Racing Dodge.
On lap 38 Kasey Kahne and Tony Raines got together with dire consequences in turn one and less than ten laps later no less than eight cars were swept up in the biggest crash of the day when Jamie McMurray and Jimmie Johnson got together in turn one in heavy traffic. The ensuing melee saw McMurray and JJ Yeley sustain heavy damage while Johnson, Bill Elliott, Ricky Rudd, Carl Edwards, Robby Gordon and Kyle Petty escaped with minor damage.
![Tony Stewart - Home Depot Chevrolet [pic credit: image.net]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/300248.jpg)
