The Montoya, Kyle Busch Duel Highlights Weekend
Juan Pablo Montoya Spins Championship Leader Under Caution
Choose your battles wisely. That is advice that Kyle Busch must heed. It is one thing to mess with the young guns in the Nationwide Series such as Steve Wallace and Brad Keselowski, and it is another thing to mess with the heavy hitters in the Sprint Cup Series. Last week, Kyle Busch called out Kevin Harvick, who has surprisingly kept his mouth closed on the matter. This week, he banged fenders with Juan Pablo Montoya.
Montoya, an older Latino version of Kyle Busch, had enough of the beating and banging and proceeded to turn into Busch during the final caution of the rain-shortened race. After the race, he straightforwardly confessed his intentions.
"We always give each other lots of room," Montoya said. "But he went wide like I wasn't there. Then I got beside him and he started banging me like he was trying to wreck me. I looked at him like, 'What are you doing?' ..."Yeah (I wrecked him on purpose). I did what he did to me. I don't appreciate people who race me like that. There's a fine line and he crossed it."
Busch acted as if he was the innocent victim in Montoya's outburst. "I have no idea," Busch said. "I got a run on him earlier. I didn't turn down into him. He ran me up the racetrack. I don't know what his beef is."
Montoya and Busch were not the only drivers that left New Hampshire with bruised egos. The reason for the caution that had Montoya stewing was rookie Sam Hornish Jr spinning out Chase for the Championship contender Clint Bowyer. It appeared as if Hornish, who was a lap car, just got into the back of Bowyer.
"I'm not sure what the No. 77 was thinking, especially since he wasn't even on the lead lap," said Bowyer.
Hornish said, “It’s difficult when you’re racing lead-lap cars and lap-down cars at the same time."
DEI rookie driver Aric Almirola and Chase for the Championship contender Kasey Kahne engaged in a couple of heated battles at Loudon. On lap 216, Kahne gets into Almirola, sending him around. Almirola stayed on the lead lap and on lap 225, he enacted revenge. Kahne lost two laps due to the incident, while Almirola went on to finish 23rd on the lead lap.
"Once the 8 made contact with us, we were forced to ride around until the race was over and just finish wherever we could. It's just too bad," said a disappointed Kahne after finishing 30th.
By the way, Kurt Busch won his first race of the 2008 Sprint Cup season after he stayed on the track while the leaders pitted on lap 274. The race ended after 284 laps due to inclement weather.
Quote of the week
Jimmy Spencer's opinion regarding the up and coming young guns.
"The sport has really grown, these young kids come along, and there are some really good young kids. There are some punk young kids."
