NASCAR NATION – 8-11

Juan Pablo Montoya has had many opportunities to find himself back in victory lane after his first career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series victory at Infineon Raceway in 2007. But each time, he has found himself falling just short due to mishandled pit stops, on-track mistakes, and simply bad luck.
But returning to the Watkins Glen International Raceway road course, Montoya seemed as poised as ever to snap his winless streak. And one way one can guarantee such a result is to dominate a race in the fashion that Montoya did Sunday.
Montoya led a commanding 74 of 90 laps to easily win the Helluva Good! Sour Cream Dips At The Glen, effectively ending his 113-race victory drought.
“It’s about time,” Montoya said. “We’ve lost a lot of them, gave away a lot of them. It gets frustrating, everybody fighting. There are so many things I have to learn. I still make a lot of mistakes. It’s experience. We’ve just got to learn from it.”
Montoya’s relief came as agony to another driver with road-racing history – Marcos Ambrose. Ambrose fell just short yet again, stumbling on his final pit stop and being passed by Kurt Busch on the final lap to fall to a disappointing third place finish.
Ambrose, the winner of Saturday’s Nationwide Series race for the third consecutive year, is still looking for his first victory in the Sprint Cup Series. He recently announced that he will leave the No. 47 car at the end of the season, and seemed visibly frustrated with his finish following the race.
“I got to tell you it doesn’t feel nice finishing third. I want to win so bad in the Cup Series, and this was a really good chance for me,” he said. “Something went wrong in the last pit stop. We lost the handle on the racecar, maybe a different set of tires, slightly different spring rate in the tires. We lost the handle on it.”
Busch was second in his No. 2 Dodge, followed by Ambrose. AJ Allmendinger was fourth in his Ford, followed by polesitter Carl Edwards in fifth.
Several drivers in Chase for the Cup contention were involved in accidents late Sunday, results in several poor finishes. Tony Stewart sent Boris Said spinning into the outside wall, but Stewart was able to hold his ground and finish seventh. But when Jimmie Johnson went spinning two laps later, collecting Denny Hamlin, the two weren’t so lucky. Johnson was 28th, while Hamlin was forced to the garage and took home a 37th-place finish.
Martin Truex Jr. of Ocean County started 25th and finished 15th.
Five drivers remain less than 150 points outside of the twelfth position in the standings with only four races remaining before the Chase for the Sprint Cup begins.
Nationwide Series:
Marcos Ambrose found himself in a familiar spot last Saturday at Watkins Glen – The Nationwide Series victory lane. Ambrose led 60 of 82 laps to win his third consecutive Zippo 200 at The Glen. Joey Logan was second, followed by Kevin Harvick in third, Brad Keselowski in fourth, and Kyle Busch in fifth.
Brad Keselowski remains the series points leader by over 300 points ahead of second place Carl Edwards.
Camping World Truck Series:
Todd Bodine led 91 of 150 laps en route to his second victory of 2010 in the Camping World Truck Series. Bodine held off Austin Dillon to capture the Nashville 200 at Nashville Superspeedway and remain the series points leader. Dillon was second, followed by Aric Almirola in third, Timothy Peters in fourth, and Johnny Sauter in fifth.
Bodine now leads second place Almirola by 174 points with 11 races remaining.
Coming Up:
The Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series head to Michigan International Speedway, while the Camping World Truck Series visits Darlington Raceway.
Bruce Knoll, 18, of Eldora, can be contacted by email at bknoll jr4cmcherald@yahoo.com