Well, thanks Mr. T for starting this thread (that I'm afraid will be short lived).
My most appreciated friend Belatti must have written that
after Argentina's soccer team was defeated by Colombia yesterday (he, he), on its way to the World Cup...
Let me try to contradict his comment.
Montoya has won two races, something no latin driver (including argentinians or brazilians...
) has ever done. That's enough for me (thanks again, Juan, for being the best latin driver for more than a decade, coming from a country without racing history).
As usual, Mr. Montoya keeps doing good things in his inimitable style. Also, as usual, Juan shined more in the beginning, before running into troubles in his condition as foreigner, something that part of the grid (as usual... sigh) has found to be a real menace for the "status" at any series he has raced. He lived
this at Saab, F3 and F1 championships; now he has lived through it in NASCAR. Few drivers in history have accomplished what Juan has (perhaps, Fangio) under THAT circumstances, fighting not only the drivers, the car and the track, but the establishment, and not precisely in a quiet way.
You're free to dismiss his "rookie state", but he classifies as one, in my
highly biased opinion.
Blending into a culture like the southern one is not easy. The fact that he has had to learn a completely new set of rules and racing circumstances, and the fact that nothing could be more dissimilar than the type of cars he has raced all his life and the type of cars he confronts now (he raced his last tin top when he was 19 or something like that, btw, a puny Chevrolet with 4 cylinders and 1.500 cc!), only makes this more patent: he's a hell of a driver with little or no knowledge of the task at hand in NASCAR, when he started there at the end of 2006.
BTW, I wonder why no australian Super V8 or argentinian TC drivers have ever be successful at NASCAR racing.
Well, to be sincere, that's a rethorical question: I don't
really wonder about it,
I know NASCAR is one of the most competitive series in the world, much, much more than F1, which hinges
a lot around money.
I've followed NASCAR since the 70's, with passion, as some people in the forum can attest. I always defend NASCAR racing quality, the knowledge of its fans and its level of entertainement, as my american friends know.
To give Belatti some perspective into what Mr. Montoya has accomplished, allow me to add this:
I remember the failure of Marcus Ambrose,
two times Super V8 champion at NASCAR: he won no races in 52 attempts and
only classified 8 times in the top ten. He raced for the Rookie award with no success, btw.
Mr. A.J. Allmendiger
won 5 of 14 Champcar races in 2006: at NASCAR, in 2007,
he qualified only 13 times in 30 attemps, while Juan has an impecable qualification record, missing pole position by thousands of a second in his early attempts.
Sam Hornish Jr.,
3 times Indy Car champion had not a single top-ten in 8 starts (at Busch!).
Steve Kinser,
of Sprint Car fame, raced 5 times before being
replaced.
We're talking about the largest racing organization in USA, where only Mario Andretti, the great, has ever been a successful "foreigner". That speaks volumes to me, but, hey, you're free to think it's an easy thing to do...
So, Belatti, tongue-in-cheek, what's in the way of Fontana's career at NASCAR? He certainly is no rookie in tin-tops, and he had F1 experience.
yupiii!), unless the score is 5-0... 
