Juan Pablo Montoya finally had a race without a mistake, and he proved invincible.
The hard-driving Colombian erased 113 races of futility Sunday, winning a duel with Marcos Ambrose and the Sprint Cup race at Watkins Glen International.
"It's about time," Montoya said after celebrating with his crew in Victory Lane. "We've lost a lot of them, gave away a lot of them. It gets frustrating, everybody fighting. There's so many things I have to learn. I still make a lot of mistakes. It's experience. We've just got to learn from it."
Frustration mounted when crew chief Brian Pattie's pit strategy backfired at the previous two races. A late four-tire call likely cost Montoya a win at the Brickyard 400, and he finished 16th a week ago at Pocono after starting second, another questionable pit call the culprit that led to harsh words over the radio.
A prerace talk at Watkins Glen with team co-owner Chip Ganassi helped clear the air. Montoya went out, withstood repeated stalking and challenges from Ambrose and won going away.
Montoya led 74 of 90 laps on the road course in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York and beat Kurt Busch to the line by nearly 5 seconds for his second career victory.
The other win came on NASCAR's other road course at Infineon Raceway near Sonoma in 2007, 113 races ago. Montoya gave Earnhardt Ganassi racing just its third victory of the season.
