This weekend will mark the return of one of the best to ever jump from open-wheel racing straight into NASCAR.
Juan Pablo Montoya, more than 10 years after his final start in a stock car, will rejoin the Cup Series grid at Watkins Glen International. It will be the final race of the season for 23XI Racing’s No. 50 Toyota, which has been running a number of guest drivers this season to promote sponsor Mobil 1’s 50th anniversary.
The announcement last month should have been applauded. Instead, there were a number of people on social media with same tired, worn-out joke.
Ha-ha, jet dryer went boom.
Montoya is not only a multi-time Indianapolis 500 winner, but also a former Monaco Grand Prix winner. Only Mario Andretti has come as close as Montoya has to the Triple Crown since Graham Hill won at Le Mans in 1972 to become the only in history to complete it.
And yet, here we are.
This is a man who had to wage war against just about every big name in all forms of racing in the 2000’s, with the exception of Lewis Hamilton. He held his own against Michael Schumacher, outright dominated the Indianapolis 500 as a rookie in 2000, and overcame a who’s-who of NASCAR stars to win at Sonoma Raceway in 2007 in his ninth month in stock cars.
But he hit a jet dryer.
Okay, so here’s the reality of what happened.
The 2012 Daytona 500 was a mess of a race to start with. Delayed a day because of rain, the race finally got going on Monday night that year. Our story in the late stages of the race would eventually get the race extended into the early-morning hours of Tuesday.
Something you see a lot in NASCAR at the races are cars speeding up to catch the tail end of the field under caution. Sometimes they had a long pit stop, sometimes they were right on the tail end of the lead lap. Sometimes they even received the free pass for being the first car a lap down at the time of caution, or they were given a wave-around because all the lead lap cars ahead of them pitted.
This may sound very elementary. Well, if these people are going to act like elementary school students, I’m going to make sure they can understand it.
Anyway, Montoya had pitted multiple times under caution after reporting a vibration with the car. A vibration is usually a tire issue, but if it isn’t, it’s really hard to diagnose if the problem isn’t very obvious.
Montoya was still struggling with a vibration but still sped off to the end of the longest line after a lengthy pit stop. Entering turn 3, the rear trailing arm broke on the car.
Now, what this part does is connect the rear axle to the rest of the suspension. As you can imagine, this makes the car quite hard to drive if it breaks.
Here is a recent example of this piece breaking during a NASCAR race:
It cannot be stressed enough: a part failure that only happens once in like a dozen years of NASCAR racing happened in the biggest race of the season, while under caution and at the exact spot where the car could wreck into a jet dryer.
And the failure not only happened to Montoya, but years later it ended up happening to Marco Andretti, the grandson of the other man who is only missing Le Mans on his Triple Crown checklist.
But Marco could just laugh it off, at the end of the day. It was a freak accident in a Truck race, ultimately. Montoya has had to live with this for the last dozen years among NASCAR fans, just because God decided to smite him at the worst possible moment.
It’s just grossly unfair to Montoya, who is, with the exception of Dan Gurney, easily the best NASCAR driver in history never to win an oval race. He came close several times, but no cigar.
The man was thrown into a Cup car with less stock car experience than most of his open-wheel contemporaries yet was able to carve out a very respectable career for himself. He had far less experience than Casey Mears or Casey Atwood in stock cars yet had a better career than both combined as it was.
And because he drove in an era where there were just two road courses in an entire season, he never really had the NASCAR career that somebody like Shane van Gisbergen can enjoy today. We never saw his full potential. If Montoya had the schedule NASCAR has now, he’d have so many more wins than the pair he has.
And maybe he’d be remembered for more than just the jet dryer guy. Maybe he should start being so anyway. Montoya should be celebrated more for his achievements, and not mocked for an act of God.
About the author
Michael has watched NASCAR for 20 years and regularly covered the sport from 2013-2021, and also formerly covered the SRX series from 2021-2023. He now covers the FIA Formula 1 World Championship, the NASCAR Xfinity Series, and road course events in the NASCAR Cup Series.
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What an annoyingly condescending article. Relax, it is only a joke.
What are these “feelings” that everyone has which apparently do nothing but get hurt all the time? Gen X doesn’t understand.
One more question: Is Fireball going to sponsor Montoya for this race?
But it’s so much fun!!!!! And NA$CAR is that much fun anymore.
Bizarre was the right word for sure. I agree Montoya won in all kinds of cars. I’m not disputing his abilities. But it happened no matter the cause, but we can’t unsee what we saw. And after seeing nobody was hurt , we still have to laugh at it happening at all. It wasn’t Montoya s fault, it’s that it happened and I’m not laughing at Montoya, I’m laughing at how bizarre it was.
No jokes about the herpes? I’m disappointed. C’mon, lighten up. It’s Juan Problemo !!!