Juan Pablo Montoya rallied back for a top ten finish in last Saturday night's Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway and stayed in the fight to make this year's "Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship" in the process.
Montoya endured damage to his Earnhardt Ganassi Racing Chevrolet in an early race incident as well as a pit road miscue during the annual mid-summer classic at Daytona.
However, he rallied back for a ninth place finish and was able to move up from 12th to 11th in the series point standings.
"We had a great car at the start," Montoya said. "We damaged it a little bit when the 17 (Matt Kenseth] and the 5 [Mark Martin] got together, but our car and everybody on the crew did an amazing job today. We came back strong."
“The car at the end wasn’t as fast as it was at the beginning of the race, but we still got another top-10 and that’s important.”
Montoya took full blame for the pit road problems that dropped him from running in the top five to 13th.
"I went in a little deep and I got stuck behind the 24 [of Jeff Gordon],” Montoya said. “It was my fault.”
He was also able to dodge trouble later in the race and avoid one of the night's multi-car accidents.
It was just pure luck,” he said. “You see smoke and you think, 'low? High? Pray?’"
“At the beginning we could stay with the leaders and at the end we couldn’t. We had a hole in the right side of the car and that didn’t help at all.”
But overall the night was another impressive run for the No. 42 team and Montoya continued his drive to qualify for this year's championship season.
