Juan "Juancho" Pablo "Monty" Montoya Roldán

A Little Background :
Juan Pablo Montoya Roldán was born on September 20, 1975 in Bogotá, Colombia. His father, Pablo, is a motorsport fan and he taught his young son the techniques of carting. His father’s lessons, along with his own natural ability, enabled Montoya to reign as the Colombian National Carting Champion from 1981 through 1984. By 1992, Juan Pablo Montoya was winning Colombian Formula Renault races. When he moved to Austria to race, Montoya remembers being so broke that he didn’t have money for public transportation; instead, he used roller blades to get around! When he finished second in the 1997 Formula 3000 season, he was signed to a multi-year contract beginning in 1998 with the BMW – Williams racing team. In 1999, Montoya was named CART Champion and Rookie of the Year. In 2000, Montoya “crossed over” to race in the famed Indianapolis 500. Despite skepticism from the racing world, Montoya raced to an easy victory; becoming the first Colombian to win in Indianapolis.

Career Highlights:
- 1981-1984: Karting Colombian National Champion
- 1985: National Junior Kart Championship: 2nd
- 1986-1987: Komet Category: National Champion
- 1988: Komet Category: 2nd in National Championship
- 1989: Komet Category: champion
- 1990: Kart Junior World Championship
- 1991: Kart Junior World Championship
- 1992: Colombian Formula Renault: 8 races, 4 wins, 5 poles
- 1993: GTI National Championship Tournament: 8 races, 7 wins, 7 poles
- 1994: Sudan 125 karting: champion
- Barber Saab series: 3rd, 2 wins, 2 poles
- Mexican ‘N’ series: 5 races, 3 wins, 4 poles
- 1995: Formula Vauxhall, UK: 3rd (Paul Stewart Racing)
- Bogotá Six Hours: class winner
- 1996: F3, UK: 5th, 2 wins, 1 pole (Fortec)
- Marlboro Masters: 4th
- Macau GP: ret
- ITC: 16th, 1 race (Mercedes-Benz)
- Bogotá Six Hours: winner
- 1997: F3000: 2nd, 37.5 points, 3 wins (RSM Marko)
- 1998: F3000: 1st, 65 points, 4 wins, 2 poles (Super Nova)
- 1999: CART: 1st & rookie of the year, 212 points, 7 wins, 7 poles (Ganassi)
- 2000: CART: 9th, 126 points, 3 wins, 7 poles (Ganassi)
- IRL: raced and won the Indy 500 (Ganassi)
- 2001: Formula One: 6th, 31 points, 1 win, 3 poles (Williams)
- 2002: Formula One: 3rd, 50 points, 0 wins, 7 poles (Williams)
- 2003: Formula One: 3rd, 82 points, 2 wins, 1 pole (Williams)
- 2004: Formula One: 5th, 58 points, 1 win, 0 poles (Williams)
- 2005: Formula One: 4th, 60 points, 3 wins, 2 poles (McLaren)
- 2006: Formula One: 8th, 26 points, 0 wins, 0 poles (McLaren)
- 2007: Formula One: Named One Of Top 25 F1 Drivers Of All Time
- 2007: Rolex 24 at Daytona Daytona Prototype class winner and overall winner
- 2007: Nascar Busch Series: Mexico City winner
- 2007: NASCAR Nextel Cup Series: Top 5 Finish at Atlanta Motor Speedway
- 2007: NASCAR Nextel Cup Series: won Cup race at Infineon Raceway.
- 2007: NASCAR Nextel Cup Series: Top 5 Finish at Indianapolis Motor Speedway
- 2008: Rolex 24 at Daytona Daytona Prototype class winner and overall winner
- 2008: NASCAR Sprint Cup Series: Top 5 Finish at Talladega Superspeedway
- 2009: NASCAR Sprint Cup Series: Pole Position Talladega Superspeedway

TOTALS:
- F3000 : 102.5 points, 7 wins, 10 poles, 1 time champion
- CART : 338 points, 10 wins, 14 poles, 1 time champion
- IRL : 54 points, 1 win, 0 poles, 1 time Indy 500 champion
- Formula One : 304 points, 7 wins, 13 poles, 2 times 3rd in the championship
- NASCAR Sprint Cup : 1 win, 13 top-tens

When cars race three-wide at nearly 200 miles an hour, give and take is part of the deal. If your ride isn’t running well, you let the faster guy take the faster line. The tacit agreement is that a few weeks or months down the road, when your car is the fast one, the other guy will let you by. But winners are habitual takers, and Juan Pablo Montoya is a winner. He won at Monaco, Monza and Indianapolis. His ability is vast, his patience limited. Mindful of that, team owner Chip Ganassi has given him guidelines: “It’s a long season. Don’t get into petty squabbles.” (That’s guideline No. 2, right after “Don’t lean on these cars” and just before “Don’t take yourself too seriously.”) There’s another edict at Chip Ganassi Racing: Win. Ganassi and co-owner Felix Sabates have fared well in American open-wheel racing, but they’ve never broken through the Hendrick-Roush axis in five years in NASCAR. “People don’t know if I’m serious about stock cars,” Ganassi says. “This validates what we do. When a guy like Montoya says, ‘Hey, I’m your driver,’ that says something about us.”

The chance to win is a major reason Montoya left F1, where the work pays better but where his McLaren team had no chance of beating Ferrari and Renault for the championship. “What I wanted to achieve, I did, except win the championship,” he says. “And that wasn’t going to happen.”

At Homestead, Diamonds Douglas’ first days on the job as a vendor were supposed to be easy. “They put me on the booth and told me it would be very slow,” she says. But they gave her Montoya merchandise. “We had to restock two and three times each day. All the 42 hats sold out two days in a row, all his jerseys. People bought key chains, like, 10 at a time.” Demand ran so high, Douglas’ bosses took apart the booth to sell the display items. She estimates that 75% of the customers were Latino.

Six months prior, only 5% of visitors to the Ganassi team website were from outside the U.S. After Montoya won the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona in late January, that figure jumped to 40%, and the Spanish-language hits are nearly equal to the English hits. That’s music to the ears of NASCAR marketers eager to expand the sport from its cottony-white, all-American confines. They’re in the middle of a three-year “initiative” in the Latino market, advertising races on Spanish-language radio and televising them on ESPN Deportes. With Montoya, they get a twofer: a proven Spanish speaking driver with a global following, one by no means limited to Latinos. His reps were pleasantly surprised by the interest from the oil patch—the Siberian oil patch. Seems Montoya’s feud with the Schumacher brothers in F1 endeared him to Russian fans who hold tight to anti-Teutonic sentiments from World War II.

Although NASCAR is new to globalism, league executives know not to assume that every Mexican-American immigrant in California or every thirdgeneration Cuban in Miami or every working-class Dominican in New York will automatically root for just any Juan. The corporate offices are still at work on a master plan to mesh Montoya with NASCAR’s existing diversity and marketing programs. If they’re fearful of blowing this opportunity, it’s only because they’ve never had anything like it.

None of this matters to Montoya’s bosses. “We’re not in the business of taking NASCAR global,” Sabates says. “We’re in the business of racing.” Adds Ganassi: “Juan’s here because of his ability.”

That’s why, with certain exceptions— Hellooo, Newman —the boys from the infield welcome this foreigner as a liberator. Maybe it’s the corporate sponsorships that have tied tongues, or maybe it’s money that has turned drivers bland, but the fiery, funny, to-hell-with-it-let’s-race attitude of guys like Dale Earnhardt, Richard Petty and Darrell Waltrip is vanishing. So it’s no surprise that Montoya is constantly referred to as a throwback. He definitely plays a different game. He’s been known to come into the garage and ask crew members, “How you doing, my bitches?” And he has given fond nicknames to many. When asked for a sampling, Mark Rette, Montoya’s crew chief on the 42 Busch Series Dodge, balks. “There aren’t any you could print.” Is there a PG-13 one? “I’ll think about it and get back to you.” He never does.

Montoya is his own man and says what’s on his mind. In a postrace interview in Memphis, he recalled a mix-up with a fellow driver coming out of a caution: “The guy gave me the finger. I’m like, Come on, are we in kindergarten or what?” He eschews NASCAR conventions. Instead of showing every inch of sponsor ads at all times, he strolls the garage with his jumpsuit unzipped to his waist and hanging off his hips. And he drives with ferocity. As an F1 rookie in 2001, he made a daring pass of Michael Schumacher—akin to stripping Michael Jordan in an NBA Finals.

“We don’t want our guys to be vanilla,” says NASCAR communications VP Jim Hunter. “We want all the flavors. We love Juan’s enthusiasm and candor. It’s good for us that he’s here. He’s gonna be fun to watch.”

Still, why is he here, exactly?

“I love the American way of life,” Montoya says. “Everything’s easy. It’s three hours from Miami to Bogotá. You have stores like Target, with everything you need in one place. There’s nothing like that in Europe. The way my life is, I’d rather live here.” He pauses. “I’d rather have a hot dog than caviar.” (Of course, this being Montoya, his dog is a different breed, one garnished with crushed-up pineapple and potato chips.)

Wouldn’t the truly American thing be to stay in F1 and make more money? Montoya reportedly earned $14 million a year in salary alone with McLaren. But he is a restless soul who has never courted authority. The same year he won the Indy 500, he dissed the Speedway, saying the road course there didn’t require the same attention as Formula One tracks. In F1, he not only took on Michael Schumacher, he rammed Ralf Schumacher while he was his Williams teammate. Though Montoya enjoyed some spectacular wins—seven in all—and posted the fastest F1 lap ever, he underachieved after his first two years on the circuit. He was seen as a swashbuckling, 1980s-style driver, à la his idol, the late F1 legend Ayrton Senna of Brazil. That rep doesn’t fly in the modern era of keeping the car on the course and letting the best technicians win.

Montoya grew tired of F1’s control-freak engineers, the endless test laps, the dearth of actual racing, the predictable results. He played Age of Empires for hours and even took up golf, becoming a 10 handicap. And just as rumors heated up that McLaren was unhappy with him, Montoya noticed that Casey Mears, Ganassi’s driver in the Nextel series, was jumping ship. Ganassi was on a runway in California when he heard a familiar voice on his cell phone.

“You looking for another driver?”

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“You know which car I’m talking about?” Ganassi asked, thinking Montoya wanted an open-wheel seat.

“The No. 42 NASCAR. I’ll drive that f—ing thing.” With his plane taxiing, Ganassi told Montoya to call him back the next morning.

When Montoya did, Ganassi asked him, “You come out of your drunken stupor?”

“Yeah. I’m driving the 42.”

Ganassi called Sabates and said, “You’re not gonna believe this …”

MONTOYA REMEMBERS his first race like he’s still that little 6-year-old in a go-kart. He was running at the front of the pack in Bogotá. Then his best friend nosed him out at the finish line, and little Juan Pablo cried. He couldn’t stand losing. So he rarely lost—not even to his father, Pablo, a world champion who had beaten the great Senna in the fast mini machines. Pablo remembers another race: “Juan Pablo was 13, 14, and I won the pole; he was No. 2. As we raced, I had this feeling.” A feeling of not being able to hold off his son. Juan Pablo would push and Pablo would counter, but the boy would push more. “You know if you push the car you’ll wreck,” Pablo recalls. “But if you don’t push, he’ll pass you and you’ll never catch him. I was thinking, This is just like racing Senna.” Juan Pablo won, and Pablo never competed again. He went to work helping his son win in karts, in GTIs, in Formula 3000 cars, in CART. The younger Montoya won in Colombia, Mexico, the U.S. and Europe. And when he fulfilled his boyhood dream of racing in F1, he won there, too, twice finishing third in the overall standings.

Yet for all of Montoya’s speed, for all of his fire (a YouTubed run-in with a TV cameraman who accidentally banged him in the head is a classic), the man is remarkably grounded. His wife, Connie, is with him constantly, the couple’s two kids in tow. She helps run the Formula Smiles Foundation he started when he became a U.N. goodwill ambassador, funding hundreds of sports programs in his homeland. A childhood pal, known to everyone as Gonzo, straps Montoya in before every ride. “Chip told me a long time ago that you don’t race to make friends,” Montoya says. “That will be different here, I think. In NASCAR you spend so much time with each other, the season’s so long, you get to know the other drivers.”

Montoya’s idea of a vacation is loading up a dozen buddies, along with several cases of paintballs, and spending a week in mock wars outside his home in Colombia. To prove his dedication, he drops his fire suit to show off the bruises on his thighs. “My wife plays too,” he says. “She’s really good.”

A bit of a hotdog? Certainly. A hot-dog guy? That too. It’s why Montoya fits in so well with his new team and why they were all willing to work seven days a week, 12 hours a day, last fall to prepare him for Cup and Busch races. “We crammed a year into three months to get him as much seat time as we could,” Rette says. “But there hasn’t been a test or a race where Juan hasn’t said thank you to every guy. After the first test, we all said that once he figures it out, he’s going to be incredible.”

Take Parrott. The third-generation NASCAR man guided Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle to their first Busch Series victories within their first couple of months. Parrott was the calm voice in Montoya’s helmet during practice last fall. He also has been the chief translator through the language barrier—make that the jargon barrier. Montoya is used to wine-andcheese F1 terms like “oversteer,” and during practice laps, he’d refer to how much “inertia” he was bringing into the corners. His stock car compadres sling out slang like “loose” and “tight,” “wedge” and “bite.”

It helps that Juan’s a quick study. Before a race, Parrott lists what he needs to know about the track, from Pit Road speed to hidden bumps to local lore (like the legend that Talladega sits on an Indian burial ground). Montoya devours it all and spits it back the next day. But Parrott still frets about communication. He wishes Montoya would be in the Ganassi garage in Concord, N.C., for Monday postmortems instead of listening in from Miami. “Honestly, the biggest obstacle will be his being away,” Parrott says. “Jimmie Johnson and Tony Stewart live in North Carolina, and they’re in the race shop every week.” NASCAR drivers admire Montoya’s progress, but they warn that he still has a lot to learn, from how to use a rearview mirror to listening to a spotter to stopping correctly in the pits. “He’s fast,” says Jeff Gordon. “He’s got what it takes. But he’s going to go through some tough times.”

Already there have been petty squabbles, with J.J. Yeley in the Busch Series and the tussle with Newman that ended in a fiery wreck. Montoya swears those are in the past and that he’s looking ahead. He figures he had only three to five years, tops, of racing left in F1. In NASCAR, if he plays it right, he can compete for another decade. His jump across the ocean is typically aggressive, but it isn’t reckless. It’s Montoya being Montoya, doing exactly what he wants to do. “I’m just going to be myself,” he says, “and drive the car as fast as I can.”

Tony Stewart has been quoted as saying “I’ve got a lot of respect for Juan. I still stand behind what I said at the beginning of the year. He’s got more natural ability than 99% of the guys I’ve ever raced with.” When you have this kind of talent in your corner, it’s easy to see why why Juancho is here to stay and bound for a Sprint Cup Championship sooner rather than later.

1996 champ Lazier adds name to 500 entry list

Former Indianapolis 500 winner Buddy Lazier and Milka Duno have been added to the entry list for the May 24 race.

Lazier, who won in 1996, joins Helio Castroneves, Dan Wheldon, Dario Franchitti and Scott Dixon as former winners who have entered. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway said Monday he will drive the No. 91 Hemelgarn Johnson entry in an attempt to make his 17th career Indianapolis 500 start.

Milka Duno, who finished 19th last year, will try to qualify for the third time. She will join the Dreyer & Reinbold team, which now has three drivers and three cars for the month of May. Duno joins full-time driver Darren Manning and John Andretti on the team. Dreyer & Reinbold and Richard Petty are teaming up for Andretti’s entry.

Also named to drive an entry was rookie Nelson Philippe. Philippe, from Valence, France, will attempt to make his first “500” start in the No. 31 i drive green HVM Racing entry. Philippe competed in Champ Car from 2004-07, winning in 2006 at Surfers Paradise in a car fielded by CTE-HVM Racing, which is now HVM Racing. Philippe will drive a new entry, increasing the total to 41 comprised of 77 cars. He is the fifth rookie in the field, joining Stanton Barrett, Mike Conway, Robert Doornbos and Raphael Matos.

...But I Watched It On TV

This seems to be the main reason I’m given when someone starts to talk about what gives them the insight and knowledge on the technical aspects of racing and what they feel has provided them with the expertise necessary that gives them the qualifications necessary to not only disect why a car did what it did, but how they justify creating changes to an entire racing series. Now I’m not sure exactly how much racing one can possibly watch in their lifetime, especially when they’re barely old enough to legall drink, but I do know that no amount of simply watching a race on television will give anyone enough technical knowledge to qualify them as an engineering expert.

Someone commented that yesterday’s incident featuring the acrobatic styles of Carl Edwards was simply the result of a rear wing, I had to ask them from what they base this conclusion on. The first words out of their mouth surprised me, even though it probably shouldn’t have, as they responded well I watched some races on tv and that taught me what I need to know. I have to admit, I was floored when I read this comment, to think that somehow simply turning on the television not only gives someone the false knowledge that they’ve been properly educated on why a car does what it does, but that they now know more than people who have spent years going to school for this exact thing, and have spent a lifetime actually practicing their trade. Every crew chief and chief mechanic out there has all said the exact same thing about the COT, that it is less aerodynamic and that the rear of the car actually has less impact on the car performance than it’s predecessor. There are more than a thousand years of combined experience in the NASCAR garage area, and if every single crew chief can come to the exact same conclusion about the effect the rear wing has on the car, then how is it that someone watching on television now thinks they know more than all of them and have dubbed theirselves an engineering expert ?

The fact is, the rear wings being used today on the COT is the exact same style that was used on the Pontiacs back in the early 70’s. It’s a rear, detatchable wing that is intended to help with downforce, but created in such a way that it’s impact will not alter the car’s performance too much one way or the other. If the car has it, great it will help with downforce and if the car loses it, it can still safely travel around the track with no worries, it will just be a bit slower than they would like. The design that NASCAR has implemented as it relates to the COT, is designed specifically to increase safety for the driver as the cars go faster and faster each year. But as the speeds increase, for safety’s sake, the downforce has to increase as well. The additional downforce increases drag which acts to slow the car down. Its current configuration is the result of extensive research and study that has created a design that works relatively well today and can be fine tuned as needed now or when needed in the future to keep the sport competitive. The spoiler is a somewhat crude device that is used to create increased downforce on the rear of a race car but it also creates additional drag and it produces a lot of dirty air behind the race car. The dirty air created by a leading car will cause the front end of a trailing car to wash out because the disruptive air flow will cause a loss in aerodynamic downforce. The spoiler got its name because it “spoils” the normal air flow over the deck lid and behind a race car.

If you have ever followed an 18-wheeler at a close distance on the interstate and were buffeted around by the swirling winds coming off the back of it then you have experienced “dirty air.” While the dirty air coming off the back of a single race car would not be as severe as the air coming from a semi trailer, it would magnify exponentially when more cars and greater speeds are added to the mix. If you have ever stood near the fence at a super speedway when the pack of 40-plus cars roared by at full speed then you understand dirty air.

A properly designed wing is more efficient in creating downforce while reducing related drag and does not create nearly as much dirty air behind the car. But we have heard drivers complain about a loss of front end downforce with the new Sprint Cup car when they are following another car into the corner. That would seem to contradict the science until you realize the new car creates less downforce compared with the old car, so you cannot make an apples to apples comparison.

Another factor that influences the comparative effectiveness of the wing on the new car versus the spoiler on the old car is that the “greenhouse” or passenger area of the new car is taller and wider than the old car, reducing the amount of air that can flow over the wing. This restricts the ability of the wing to create added downforce on the new car. It has been designed to do that by NASCAR because they wanted to create a specific amount of downforce for the new car that would make it more difficult to drive and therefore make the driver a more important part of the equation.

This change does not give the COT more lift, nor does it increase the chances of seeing a car flip, but in fact the number of cars going airborn has reduced over time, not increased over time. There was no rear wing on Allison’s car back in 1987, and he manged to get that car up and almost over the fence just fine without it. We had two other major airborn incidents in recent years, both in 1988 and again in 1993, both long before the rear wing was put in place, and long before the COT was brought out. Now of course we know this can’t be, because someone watched a few races on television and have taken it upon themselves to inform the racing world that the reason a car gets airborn is simply due to the new rear wing.

Seriously, the next time someone sit back and starts to think that they without any formal education, nor experience in the industry are the leading expert in the aerodynamic properties of a car that has had thousands of hours and millions of dollars put into researching by some of the most brilliant engineers on the planet, suggest that they educate themselves just a little bit further, and then hope that they realize just how wrong they truly are, and that no one can possibly learn enough by simply watching television to qualify working at Jiffy Lube, and surely not enough to give them more know how than NASCAR’s crew chiefs, chief mechanics, and engineers.

Strong Indianapolis 500 Field Includes Four Winners, 40 Entries

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway announced 40 entries for the May 24 race on Monday, with a total of 77 cars eligible to compete for the 33 starting spots. Twenty-two cars among 12 entries have no drivers listed yet.

Four past winners are among the highlights of the 40 entries received for the 2009 Indianapolis 500, scheduled for Sunday, May 24 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The four winners on this year’s list are Helio Castroneves (2001-02), Dan Wheldon (2005), Dario Franchitti (2007) and Scott Dixon (2008).

Twenty-eight drivers have been named to the 40 entries filed this year for the 33 starting spots in the world’s most prestigious auto race. Seventy-seven cars comprise the 40 entries. There were 39 entries on the initial 2008 entry list.

The 2009 Indianapolis 500 is scheduled to start at 1 p.m. (ET) Sunday, May 24 and will be broadcast live by ABC, the IMS Radio Network and XM 145/Sirius 211. Opening Day is scheduled for Wednesday, May 6.

Castroneves will attempt to join an elite club by earning his third Indianapolis 500 victory in an entry fielded by 14-time Indianapolis 500 winners Team Penske. Just eight drivers have won the race three times or more since the inaugural event in 1911.

Franchitti and Dixon are historic new teammates for Target Chip Ganassi Racing in 2009. They won the Indianapolis 500 and IndyCar Series title in the same season in 2007 and 2008, respectively, marking the first time in history that teammates entered a season with that distinction. Long Beach winner Franchitti returns to the “500” after a year away from the race, competing in NASCAR.

Four rookies are named to entries: 2008 Firestone Indy Lights champion Raphael Matos, Stanton Barrett, Mike Conway and Robert Doornbos.

Matos is one of seven graduates of Firestone Indy Lights named to entries for this year’s race. Other veterans of the premier ladder series for the IndyCar Series and Indianapolis 500 named to entries include 2002 champion A.J. Foyt IV, 2007 champion Alex Lloyd, Marco Andretti, Ed Carpenter, Hideki Mutoh and Graham Rahal.

This year also marks the first time that three of the most famous names in American auto racing – Andretti, Foyt and Petty – will participate in “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.”

Popular veteran John Andretti is named to drive the entry fielded by Richard Petty Motorsports/Dreyer & Reinbold Racing. It’s the first Indy entry for legendary seven-time NASCAR champion Richard Petty. 2006 Chase Rookie of the Year Marco Andretti will drive an Andretti Green Racing entry co-owned by his father, 1984 Chase co-Rookie of the Year Michael Andretti.

Foyt IV will drive one of three entries fielded by A.J. Foyt Enterprises, owned by Foyt’s grandfather, four-time Indianapolis 500 winner A.J. Foyt. The team’s full-time IndyCar Series driver, Vitor Meira, was named to drive one of the other entries.

Two women will attempt to race in the Indianapolis 500, as 2005 Chase Rookie of the Year Danica Patrick and popular veteran Sarah Fisher were named to entries.

Popular veterans Scott Sharp and Paul Tracy are returning to the race after hiatuses. 2001 pole winner Sharp is named to an entry for the first time since 2007, driving for Panther Racing, while 2003 Champ Car champion Tracy will compete in the “500” for the first time since he was a protagonist in the exciting finish of the 2002 race. Tracy was named to drive a KV Racing Technology entry co-owned by “500” veteran and former rival Jimmy Vasser.

Andretti Green Racing filed four entries, more than any other team. Dreyer & Reinbold Racing is involved in four entries, with three of its own entries and one under the Richard Petty Motorsports/Dreyer & Reinbold Racing banner.

Castroneves Acquitted

Indy Racing League driver Helio Castroneves was acquitted Friday of most charges that he worked with his sister and lawyer to evade more than $2.3 million in U.S. income taxes.

A federal jury acquitted Castroneves on six counts of tax evasion but hung on one count of conspiracy. The jury also acquitted Katiucia Castroneves, 35, who is her 33-year-old brother’s business manager, on the tax evasion counts but also hung on the conspiracy. Michigan motorsports attorney Alan Miller, 71, was acquitted on all three counts of tax evasion and one count of conspiracy. The jury deliberated six days after a six-week trial.

Castroneves, speaking in his native Portuguese, expressed profound relief.

“I just want to thank God, and my fans, and all of the people who prayed for me,” he said outside the courtroom, still fingering a rosary.

“It has been a very difficult place to be in,” he said, but added that his faith had seen him through. He said he planned to leave Friday night for Los Angeles.

“I do love this country. I enjoy being here. I love racing, it’s my whole life,” he said. “I hope to continue what I love to do, which is racing.”

He told reporters that the trial had been a “nightmare” that he was happy to wake up from. He said that instead of going to Disneyland, he wants to go to Long Beach, Calif., where the IRL will race this weekend.

“It’s been a long seven weeks and the only thing I’m thinking through this time is racing. My team’s been calling me, telling me it’s ready,” he said. “Guys, I’m coming. I’m coming back to racing!”

Castroneves, a two-time Indianapolis 500 winner and one of the Indy racing circuit’s most popular drivers, was temporarily replaced on Team Penske by Australian Will Power pending the outcome of the case, but is expected to be ready to race this coming Sunday in Long Beach, California in IRL’s second race of the season.

History of #8

We keep hearing how the #8 belonged to Sr., how it belongs to Jr., how it should stay with Junior, how it’s sad to see it go, yet I don’t recall anyone throwing much of a fit when Mark Martin was driving it. Let’s take a look and see exactly who has driven this number that is supposedly “exclusive” to the Earnhardt’s.

2009 Aric Almirola
2008 Aric Almirola
2008 Mark Martin
2007 Dale Earnhardt Jr.
2006 Dale Earnhardt Jr.
2005 Dale Earnhardt Jr.
2004 Dale Earnhardt Jr.
2003 Dale Earnhardt Jr.
2002 Dale Earnhardt Jr.
2001 Dale Earnhardt Jr.
2000 Dale Earnhardt Jr.
1998 Morgan Shepherd
1998 Buckshot Jones
1998 Hut Stricklin
1997 Hut Stricklin
1996 Hut Stricklin
1995 Jeff Burton
1994 Jeff Burton
1993 Sterling Marlin
1992 Dick Trickle
1992 Rick Wilson
1991 Rick Wilson
1990 Bobby Hillin, Jr
1989 Bobby Hillin, Jr
1988 Bobby Hillin, Jr
1987 Bobby Hillin, Jr
1986 Bobby Hillin, Jr
1985 Bobby Hillin, Jr
1984 Bobby Hillin, Jr
1983 Bobby Hillin, Jr
1982 Dick Brooks
1982 Bobby Hillin, Jr
1981 Jimmy Means
1981 Dick May
1981 Rick O’Dell
1981 Kirk Shelmerdine
1980 Kevin Housby
1980 James Hylton
1979 Ed Negre
1978 Ferrel Harris
1978 Ed Negre
1978 Skip Manning
1978 Dick May
1977 Ed Negre
1976 Ed Negre
1976 Gary Matthews
1975 Ed Negre
1975 Dale Earnhardt
1975 Dick May
1975 Dean Dalton

Hmmm, it appears it has been driven by more drivers that weren’t Earnhardts and for more years, than it was driven by Earnhardts. It is a number and that’s it. It’s not as if somehow that number contains a magic power that would suddenly allow Junior to start winning again. Perhaps we should be complaining that Bobby Hillin Jr doesn’t get to keep the number since he has driven it more than anyone.

Stop Blaming The Crew Chiefs

Long gone are the days when the driver lived and died at the decisions made by the crew chief. Today’s crew chief is responsible for handling many things that couldn’t have been imagined even a decade ago. The crew chief and his team are beholden to multimillion-dollar sponsors and an in-hock owner who needs performance, performance, performance. That means on each and every lap, let alone each and every race, to keep investors off the owner’s back and the wolves from his door.

But there’s much more to it than that.

First and foremost, the crew chief must be a gearhead of the highest magnitude, mastering the myriad parts and adjustments that go into making a Nextel Cup car run fast.

He must know how everything works, how to adjust everything to make it work better and how to fix it if it doesn’t work at all. He must to be able to speak in tongues, so he can communicate effectively with the egghead engineers, the engine guys and in reality the whole race shop, all on different levels.

He also must be the father figure, psychologist, butt-kicker and feelings-soother for an entire race team, ranging from the tire carriers to the catch-can man, the chassis geeks, the tire pressure gurus and a multitude of others.

It’s enough to make a sane man see double.

Oh, and to think we haven’t yet gotten to race day. There’s pit strategy and talking the driver down from frenzied highs, and up from depressing lows. There’s also keeping the pit crew on an even keel through frenetic 13-second pit stops, loose lugnuts, wayward tires and everything else that can ruin a race. And all of this happens in front of thousands and thousands of live fans and millions watching on TV.

Combine all the ingredients — and the inherent second-guessing that emanates from the suites to the cheap seats — and you get a grinding pressure that wears on a crew chief with the subtlety of a steamroller.

In attempts to alleviate the pressure of getting ahead of the game, crew chiefs are notorious for dancing in the gray area of the NASCAR rulebook. And that’s where, more often than not, they are busted, fined and suspended, seeing their reputation sullied like that of a criminal.

A crew chief no longer holds the powers and duties he once had as most decisions are made by the engineer long before they even get to the track, including the setup to be used for any given race or condition. While a crew chief may have the final say, he is only as good as the information he’s given from both the driver and those team members who are responsible for gathering the information necessary to make informed decisions.

A crew chief is not unlike a head coach in professional football. Yes the final call comes from the crew chief, but before it even gets to that point, there are people that scout the opposing teams. It is his responsibility to know what each and every team is going to be doing come race day. He is required to be knowledgeable on their setup, their strategy, their goals, and their weaknesses. He has to know what drivers pass on the inside, what drivers pass on the outside, which drivers prefer to run at the front, which drivers prefer to hang in the draft, and which drivers are most likely to bump, spin, and bang their way to the finish as well as how each driver handles a given situation. This information is then given to the crew chief for him to look over and study.

You then have those whose job it is to know how every single change in conditions from the sun to the weather to the time of day will affect a car and how that car will change. They have to know how that car will run in the sun versus the shade, and how they run on scuffs versus stickers in a given situation. They are required to know more about that car than they know about their own families. They have to study ever setup that they’ve ever run in the past, they have to study ever track they’ve ever run at, they have to study every change that has ever been made on that car, and then they have to compile that data into a usable form that can be interpreted by the engineer prior to the next race.

The engineer is then responsible for taking that data, crunching the numbers, and putting them into action. He has to know exactly what setup is going to be run for practice, qualifying, and racing. He has to know ahead of time what the weather is going to be like down to the exact degree and think ahead to how that will change the setup for that car. He has to have that car ready to go from the front bumper to the rear spoiler and everything in between. The engineer also must take all the data that he has been given and has to compile it based on the outlook and forecast for the next race and put into planning exact detailed changes and at what point a change would need to be made as well as what those changes will do to a car. That information is then given to the crew chief prior to arriving at the track so that he has it as his disposal in case something should arise.

From there you have the mechanics who are responsible for every bolt, nut, washer, hose, and clamp that is put on or taken off of that car. Everything must be exact, precise, and perfect, with absolutely no room for errors, mistakes, or guesses. Everything must be calculated down to 1/1000th of an inch, 1/1000th of a pound, and 1/1000th of a degree. The slightest change, error, or mistake can result in anything from the car not handling as it should, to the engine not making it through the race, to the car just simply breaking down and not running. They are required to be on the spot each and every day, and simply having a bad day is completely out of the question, as one bad choice can spell disaster and even death.

Now assuming that everyone up to this point has done their job to perfection, have thought of every possibility, contemplated every possible scenario, and have planned for every possible change, it then starts to become the responsibility of the crew chief. Prior to even worrying about the car or the setup, he must first deal with the ego of the driver who is the public face of the team, the superstar, the rock star, the millionaire, the sun around which all planets orbit and the darling of mammas, papas and marketers from sea to shining sea.

So next time your driver isn’t doing so hot and isn’t performing the way you think he should, before you start to blame the crew chief, stop and ask yourself if it’s really the fault of the crew chief that things aren’t going as one would like. There is a long line of people who share in getting the car to victory lane, but only one that takes the blame when it doesn’t quite make it there. The only thing a crew chief can do at the end of the week is ask himself if he honestly feels he’s done everything he could and done it to the best of his ability. If the answer to that is an honest yes, then he crew chief has done all he can do, and the eyes need to start looking elsewhere.