| | Associated Press
MADISON, Ill. -- The Great Juan would love to leave CART
something more to remember him by.
Juan Montoya, who burst onto the Champ car scene in 1999 with
seven victories and a series championship, has been on an emotional
rollercoaster ride most of this year, thanks to mechanical failures
and bad luck.
|  | | Juan Montoya's unexpected win in the Motorola 300 vaulted him to eighth in the standings -- only 31 points behind leader Gil de Ferran. |
It turned around Sunday as Montoya became the beneficiary of
Michael Andretti's misfortune in winning the Motorola 300 and
elbowing his way into what was already the closest championship
battle in CART's 22-year history.
Andretti, who appeared on the way to retaking the points lead
with three races remaining, saw a dominating performance end in a
burst of flame from a broken engine after he had lapped everyone in
the 25-car field except Montoya.
Montoya, who is expected to follow the lead of Alex Zanardi, the
man he replaced at Target/Chip Ganassi Racing, and leave for
Formula One next season, jumped from 11th to eighth in the
standings, trailing leader Gil de Ferran by just 31 points with
three races remaining.
With 66 points still out there to win, Montoya, who will
celebrate his 25th birthday Wednesday, grinned and flirted with the
possibility of winning a title he thought was out of reach weeks
ago because of bad luck and mechanical failures.
"You never know," the impish Colombian said. "The way the
season has gone, maybe it will happen. We're not quite in it yet,
but it's getting better."
Montoya, who picked up his third CART victory of the season and
the 10th of his brief career -- tying him on the all-time list with
open-wheel greats Tom Sneva, Johnny Rutherford and Bobby Unser -- was running a distant second when Andretti's engine began to lose
power just before his final pit stop on lap 183 of the 236-lap
event.
"I saw Michael disappear into the distance," Montoya said.
"He was really fast. The only thing I tried to do was stay in the
lead lap. It's a shame what happened to him, but you know how many
races I gave away this year for different reasons? This time
someone gave me one."
Patrick Carpentier tried hard to give Montoya a battle, passing
him to get back on the lead lap with 22 laps remaining. Carpentier
ran laps at about 5 mph faster than the leader to the end, but all
he could do was chop a margin of nearly 26 seconds to 11.80 -- more
than a full straightaway -- at the finish.
"I knew it was nearly impossible to catch Juan, but I was still
going as fast as I could in case something happened to him," said
the runner-up and the only other driver on the lead lap at the end.
Andretti, the all-time CART leader with 40 victories, finally
had to pull off the track when the engine blew on lap 197. The 1991
series champ was devastated by the outcome.
"We were one car shy of lapping the field," Andretti said. "I
lost power and just tried to hang on and then the thing just blew
up. It is a huge, huge loss because of the championship. This one
is right up there with the biggest losses of my career."
But Andretti is certainly not out of the battle for the $1
million Vanderbilt Cup.
There have been nine different winners in the 17 races this
season and no one has been able to sustain momentum. That explains
the logjam at the top of the standings heading into the race in
Houston on Oct. 1.
De Ferran finished a quiet eighth and now leads new runner-up
Roberto Moreno, Sunday's third-place finisher, in the points
137-129. Andretti, who got one point for leading 121 laps on
Gateway International Raceway's 1.027-mile oval, fell to third,
just 10 points behind the leader.
Paul Tracy, whose gearbox broke while he was running second to
Montoya, also wound up out of the points 15 behind de Ferran,
followed one point back by Adrian Fernandez, who finished 10th, and
four behind by rookie Kenny Brack, who was 11th.
Helio Castroneves wound up ninth in the race and is seventh in
the standings with 107 points, one more than Montoya.
Andretti, the defending race winner, said: "We were lucky that
Paul dropped out and Gil didn't score too many points. A win would
have put us in the lead, though, and that hurts. I guess we're just
snakebit right now."
Tracy slid into the fourth-turn wall on lap 208 after a
downshift broke his gearbox. That brought out the only caution flag
in the race. It was the closest CART has come to a race without a
yellow flag since that feat was accomplished in Phoenix in the
spring of 1983.
With only five laps run under caution, Montoya's speed of
155.519 mph easily broke the race record of 125.725 set by Zanardi
in 1998. | |
ALSO SEE
Motorola 300 results
Notebook: Rahal close to F 1 announcement
AUDIO/VIDEO
 Juan Montoya takes the checkered flag in Sunday's Motorola 300.
avi: 1604 k
RealVideo: 56.6 | ISDN | T1
Juan Montoya talks about winning the Motorola 300.
RealVideo: 28.8
Paul Tracy crashes into the wall, thus knocking him out the race.
avi: 1004 k
RealVideo: 56.6 | ISDN | T1
Michael Andretti's engine loses power then finally, blows up with him leading the race.
avi: 916 k
RealVideo: 56.6 | ISDN | T1
 Juan Montoya comments on Michael Andretti's engine problems.
wav: 242 k
RealAudio: 14.4 | 28.8 | 56.6
Michael Andretti talks about his engine blowing up during the Motorola 300.
wav: 916 k
RealAudio: 14.4 | 28.8 | 56.6
Paul Tracy reports his gear box malfunction.
wav: 193 k
RealAudio: 14.4 | 28.8 | 56.6
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