Releases, Backgrounders and Statements

 

1.    Tony Stewart, No. 14 Chevrolet

 

Kansas City, Kan. (October 5, 2009) – Juan Pablo Montoya’s fourth-place finish at Kansas Speedway on Sunday marked the third race of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup and also Montoya’s third consecutive top-five. Through the three Chase races, Montoya is the only driver to finish in the top-five in all of them. In addition, his Kansas finish helped him maintain third place in the point standings and cut his points deficit to 51 behind leader Mark Martin heading into California. 

 

The Target team once again unloaded a new chassis Friday morning and hoped for similar results from the previous two Chase races. Things would go up and down for the team over the course of the next couple days due to uncooperative weather and ever changing handling conditions. When it was all said and done, the team made the proper adjustments and Montoya would start 14^th on the grid.

 

Montoya wasted no time moving through the field as the green flag waved and by lap 20 the No. 42 Target Chevrolet was sitting in the top-10. When the grooves on the race track expanded, Montoya found his rhythm and was frequently the fastest car on the track. From lap 20 on, the Target Chevrolet never looked back and consistently ran among the leaders. All but three of the 267 laps were run in the top-15 and Montoya had an average running position of seventh throughout the race. The Target Chevrolet led one lap and gained five valuable bonus points towards the Chase standings. At the end of the day, Montoya crossed the finish line in the fourth position and gave the team their fifth top-five finish of the season and third in the last three weeks.

 

 “Three top-5 finishes in the first three Chase races is huge, you know. And it’s what we need to do every weekend,” explained Montoya. "A championship is beating everybody else. We come here to race and to win races and to win races you've got to beat everyone else. We know that we've got good cars. We know we're in a very good position but at the end of the day it's ten races.”

 

The fourth race of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup will take place this weekend at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif on Sunday, Oct. 11 at 3:15 pm (EST). The race will air live on ABC and radio stations affiliated with MRN radio.

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