NASCAR Sprint Cup Series: Pep Boys Auto 500

Topics:  Pep Boys Auto 500

Juan Pablo Montoya
September 6, 2009

HAMPTON, GEORGIA

KERRY THARP: Kevin, thank you very much. Good job this weekend.
Also joining us up here right now is our third-place finisher with a very strong performance, Juan Pablo Montoya. Juan, you moved up a spot in the points standings. You're now eighth. Certainly that's something you wanted to accomplish. Talk about your performance out there this evening.
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA: I think it's great. I think everything on the Target team did an amazing job. Last race in Bristol I thought we had a chance of winning. We had a flat tire. It cost actually a lot in points.
Two races with flat tires, we come here, lost a bunch of points, it's always kind of worrying. Every restart you go, Please, nobody slide into me, things like that. It was nice to see that Kasey and Kevin and myself were the three fastest cars by a mile. Once you got in line, after the first corner, you knew you were fine.
I thought I had a shot. That 9 car in the last run was incredibly fast.
KERRY THARP: Questions now for Juan Pablo Montoya.

Q. Obviously you made progress tonight points-wise. Does that change your approach next week at all?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA: No. But it just makes life easier. Apart that we're eighth in points, we got 88 points in or something. I think it's just big. They got to have a very good day and we got to have a terrible day. It still can happen. In the position we are in right now, it's just about go there, we have a great car for there, just be smart, get a top 10.

Q. What is it like in this Chase right now? As soon as you're out of the car, you were looking at a screen.
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA: As good as you want to look at the screen this race, as bad as I was in Bristol. We were not sure we had the flat tire, we were running eighth, so we decided let's stay out. Actually it cost us a lot. But you come out of there and you think I'm going to be 14 in points. You lost only two places.
If you really look at the bigger picture, we're pretty good. We're in good shape right now.

Q. I think maybe you touched the wall at some point.
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA: Once.

Q. What happened there?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA: I ran out of talent (laughter).
I don't know. Just one more and one more. In one and two, right against the fence, there's some little bumps. Right when you're probably within two inches of the wall. I was doing that every time. Once the car slide, I'm like, This is not going to be good. It's good. I didn't hit it that hard. Made the car a little bit tighter.
It's crazy. We were like average great one run, horrible the next. We just kept working at it. We're learning that we just got to keep working on the car every day, every stop, everything. We're getting there. If we keep running like this, we might even have a shot at the championship. That is nice to see.
KERRY THARP: Thank you, Juan.