Juan Pablo Montoya requested a meeting with his boss and got it the day before the Indianapolis 500, when owner Chip Ganassi flew to North Carolina to talk with his emotional driver. The early morning meeting Saturday at the team shop gave Montoya the opportunity to express his frustrations over the race team's direction.

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Trackside

May 28, 2008

An open letter to Chip Ganassi
Posted at 12:01 am by Scott Whitmore


Dear Chip:

First, let me add my congratulations on Scott Dixon’s Indy 500 victory.

For both Target-Chip Ganassi cars to be on the front row — Dixon on the pole with Dan Wheldon next to him in the middle — and then lead most of the race really showed the quality of your IndyCar team.

And your Grand Am Rolex Sports Car team of Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas is leading that series in points.

But your NASCAR teams, well, they’ve got some problems, don’t they?

There’s the whole Juan Pablo Montoya crew chief fiasco — I can’t imagine one face-to-face meeting is going to smooth that completely over — and everyone knows the transition to Cup is hard, so Dario Franchitti’s struggles before getting his ankle broken at Talladega were not unexpected.

But the fact remains that only Montoya’s 42 car is solidly inside the top 35 in owners points. Reed Sorensen’s No. 41 is on the bubble at 31 and Franchitti’s ride is an abysmal 49.

In the Nationwide Series the young Bryan Clauson has the 41 car inside the top 35 — barely — but his best finish was a sixth-place way back in February at Daytona.

His average finish — that is when he does finish a race — is 23rd. In fact he’s improved on his starting position in only one race, the Pepsi 300 on March 22, when he started 18th and finished 17th.

And he’s been pretty tough on the hardware, hasn’t he? The guys in the shop must cringe every time he straps in, because they know how much work will be coming their way on Monday.

Your other two Nationwide drivers, Franchitti and Kyle Krisiloff, have done marginally better and much worse respectively.

So where am I going with this? What’s my point?

Just this: you need to put Kevin Hamlin in your cars and let him race.

You remember Hamlin, right? He’s one of your developmental drivers, the guy you’ve got testing cars instead of racing them.

In fact, Hamlin probably has as much or more seat time in the Car of Tomorrow than any other driver on your payroll.

Hamlin, who is from Snohomish, Wash., is a two-time champion of the NASCAR Northwest Series. He’s made starts in the ARCA RE/MAX series, the Craftsman Truck Series and the Busch — now Nationwide — Series.

Last year he subbed for Montoya in the Busch 42 car, but saw his scheduled starts dwindle as you decided to end that program, then changed your mind.

Still, he made the most of the seat time he got by recording his first two top-10 finishes, a seventh in the Gateway 250 on July 21 in Madison, Ill., and eighth the following weekend in the Kroger 200 at O'Reilly Raceway Park in Indianapolis.

Hamlin is everything you need in your NASCAR program right now. He’s a smart driver who gets the most out of the equipment without tearing it up. As he showed last year, the more time he gets the better he gets.

With a string of short and medium tracks coming up on the Nationwide schedule, Hamlin will be right in his comfort zone, and can only improve your team’s position in the points race.

As for the Cup series, you’re probably going to stick with the trio you have — once Franchitti gets back — but remember who’s testing those cars for you? Once again, Kevin Hamlin is a guy who can only help that program.

What’s that you say? You’re committed to recent-high-school graduate Clauson and you’d need sponsorship to run more than one car in the Nationwide Series.

My response is that you should “loan” Clauson to a Truck Series team for seasoning, but assuming you won’t do that, take a page out of Yates Racing’s book.

You may recall early in the season Yates ran Travis Kvapil in the 28 car without any sponsorship — who can forget that generic white car with the black numbers and “SponsorYates.com” on the rear quarter panels?

Yup, it takes money to make money. Run Hamlin in the car, let him get the points up and land some sponsors. He’s good with sponsors, too, very polite and well-spoken.

Am I biased in favor of Kevin Hamlin? Well, yes I am. The very first feature story I ever wrote for The Herald was on Hamlin’s wife, Mandi, and what it was like for her as the wife of a NASCAR driver.

Both Mandi and Kevin Hamlin were in Monroe for the 2007 season-opener at Evergreen Speedway, they were tired from the cross-country flight, and they wanted to spend time with family and friends.

But they graciously made time for me to fumble through an interview that probably went on twice as long as it needed to, and cheerfully put up with several follow-up inquiries. They’re good people.

And Kevin Hamlin is a proven winner on the track.

But you know all that, don’t you? After all, you hired Kevin Hamlin in the first place. Why don’t you let him show you again why you signed him up?

Put Kevin Hamlin behind the wheel and let him race. You won’t regret it.

Sincerely,

Scott Whitmore
swhitmore@heraldnet.com

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I agree with Scott's commentary. Kevin Hamlin is good, and at this point what can it hurt?

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Let me add my two cents as well. I also agree with Scott,but do you really expect Ganassi to do anything as logical and sensible? Hamlin has the seat time and experience to make any car he's given competitive but will probably not get the chance to show it. As for Montoya,if he wasn't as good a driver as he is,that car would be mired somewhere in the back 40 . Never let it be said that Ganassi has let logic rule any decision he has made.

Very true. Montoya has talent for sure, and I understand why he is so upset.
Ganassi may wake up who knows...

when was the last time Ganassi did anything smart with a Cup team lets think.............. huh I've got nothing

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"It's all fun and games until somebody wrecks a racecar" Larry McRenyolds


Will race for nothing just give me a car

Would Montoya search for greener pastures?by Jeff Owens, NASCAR Scene, Special to FOXSports.com

Updated: June 4, 2008, 6:51 PM EST 16 comments add this RSS blog email print Juan Pablo Montoya cruised home to a solid 12th-place finish at Dover International Speedway Sunday, his best finish in weeks, and his second best of the season.

Yet Montoya was not entirely happy.
"We had a pretty good car. It's just not fast enough yet," he said. "We are making a little bit of progress ... but we are still miles off the pace to be winning races."

The implication was clear: Montoya, one of the top race-car drivers in the world, did not come to NASCAR to race for 12th.

He came from Formula One to win races, something he concedes he is not close to doing in his current situation at Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates. As intense as any racer in the world, Montoya is not happy with his team and his prospects, and his frustration is starting to surface.

A year after an impressive debut in stock cars, Montoya believes his team has taken a step back. A year ago, he had already won a NASCAR Nationwide Series race and was closing in on his first Cup win. He finished a respectable 20th in points — not bad for a driver who had never raced stock cars full-time.

In 13 races this season he sits 17th in points, but has shown no real progress over last season. His lone top-10 finish was second at Talladega, a crapshoot of a race where a driver can often take matters into his own hands.

On tracks where car and crew mean as much — if not more — than the driver, Montoya and his No. 42 team are struggling, leading Montoya to admit that he is both "frustrated" and "annoyed."

"I think it's really hard that in my first mile and a half Cup race (in the 2006 season finale), I was very close to getting a top-10 finish. Two years later, we're running 20th," Montoya said. "We should be a lot further. We should be a lot better of a team right now, and we're not."

All of the Ganassi organization seems to have taken a big step backward.

Reed Sorenson, in the final year of his contract with the team, has slipped to 30th in points. And highly touted IndyCar star Dario Franchitti has yet to get the hang of stock cars, failing to qualify for one race and falling outside the top 35 in owner points before missing the last five Cup races with a broken ankle.

Six years ago, Ganassi was contending for the Cup championship before veteran driver Sterling Marlin was injured in a crash, forcing him to miss the final third of the 2002 season.

Jamie McMurray stepped in and showed promise, winning in just his second Cup start. He then finished 13th, 11th and 12th in points before leaving for Roush Fenway Racing. Casey Mears also showed promise, improving to 14th in points before bolting for Hendrick Motorsports.

Montoya, a former Indianapolis 500 winner, Champ Car champion and Formula One star, was supposed to put the team over the top.

Instead, now even he is struggling.

"I don't think we have made as much progress as we need to," he said.

Montoya is particularly aggravated by a host of changes to his team. After getting off to a slow start this season, his veteran crew chief, Donnie Wingo, swapped roles with Jimmy Elledge, Sorenson's crew chief.

Montoya and Elledge finished second together at Talladega, and then struggled in the next two events. Suddenly, Elledge was gone, too, released from the team and replaced by Nationwide Series crew chief Brian Pattie.

Livid over yet another crew chief change, Montoya recently demanded a face-to-face meeting with team owner Chip Ganassi, expressing his displeasure with his team and the organization.

"If he was hoping he could just come here and calm me down, well, I need to run better. That's what will calm me down," Montoya said.

The question is whether Ganassi can turn things around and give Montoya the personnel and equipment he needs to win. The Colombia native has proven that he has the talent to contend in NASCAR's top series. He already has two stock-car wins on road courses and has shown enough flashes on both short tracks (eighth at Martinsville) and big ovals (second at Indy and Talladega) that his driving skill and transition to NASCAR are not in doubt.

But Ganassi has yet to prove that his organization can run with NASCAR's top teams. It has not finished in the top 10 in points since 2001 and has just one Cup win — Montoya's last year — since 2002.

Despite trying a variety of veterans and young drivers, the organization has not found the right mix to make it a consistent threat. Montoya remains its best hope, yet now he appears to be nearly fed up.

Montoya has always shown immense loyalty to Ganassi, who led him to an Indy 500 win and a Champ Car title. It was Ganassi who convinced him to move from Formula One to NASCAR in 2006.

Would Montoya consider leaving Ganassi if a better opportunity came along? If so, he would certainly be in high demand. What if Joe Gibbs Racing comes calling if two-time champion Tony Stewart does indeed leave to own his own team? Would Montoya leave Ganassi to join what is currently the most dominant team in the sport?

He would be crazy not to.

Gibbs, meanwhile, would have a long list of candidates to replace Stewart in the No. 20 Toyota. Greg Biffle, Ryan Newman, Martin Truex Jr. and others would likely jump at the opportunity. Where would Montoya rank on that list?

In terms of potential, at the top.

When you consider what Kyle Busch has done behind the wheel of a Gibbs Toyota in his first year with the organization, Montoya could potentially be just as effective.

Would he make such a move?

If things don't get better with Ganassi soon, it's possible.