MONTOYA: YOU HAD A GOOD RUN TODAY, A TOP-10 FINISH. “Yeah I guess. It’s funny. You know, last week I was very happy with like a 19th in Martinsville two weeks ago and finish eighth today and I’m a little disappointed. We made a mistake in the pits and we really didn’t lose too much. I know we just couldn’t get going at the beginning and that cost us a lot. Couldn’t keep up with the guys in front and always had four or five backmarkers between the guys and myself. And it was hard, but from there on the car was good. The Texaco/Havoline Dodge car was amazing today and racing is racing.”

WHAT HAPPENED WITH TONY STEWART? “I don’t know. He just got really close to me, got me loose and I went into him and he spun. I tried to pass him about three or four times and never gave me any room until I went in a little different. I got really loose and I don’t know what happened. We touched a little bit and next I see him spinning.”

HAVE YOU IMPROVED TO THE POINT WHERE YOU ARE DISAPPOINTED IF YOU ARE NOT IN CONTENTION TO WIN? “Well you have to be. If we don’t do that then we’re not doing our job. I don’t think Chip [Ganassi, car owner] hired me to run 20th every weekend and I didn’t come here to try to run 20th every weekend [smiles]. Is it going to happen? Yeah, it’s going to happen a lot of weekends we’re going to run 20 but our aim is to run up front.

PAUL MENARD, No. 15 MENARDS/ENERGIZER CHEVROLET: “It was really good at the end there. It started off pretty decent and then kind of went to tight-loose. It was kind of bouncing between that during the mid part. At the end it was just a little loose but a good free, I guess. Awesome pit stops all day long. I think we kind of got screwed there a little bit there for that Lucky Dog. The 2 was behind us and he wound up getting the Lucky Dog and I still don’t understand how that happened. Definitely had a top-five car, though. Pops [Tony Eury Sr., crew chief] and everybody did a hell of a job.” IT’S BEEN A TOUGH YEAR FOR YOU. HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO HAVE A GOOD DAY? “Yeah, get some momentum built up. We thought we’d be pretty good at these intermediate tracks but Atlanta and Vegas, we really didn’t run that good. But this is the same car that we ran at Atlanta and I think we hit on a couple of things to make it better. We have a COT race again next week in Phoenix so hopefully we can get it going. We had a really good test in Richmond so I’m looking forward to it.”

DONNIE WINGO, CREW CHIEF, No. 42 TEXACO/HAVOLINE DODGE: “It was a solid run but we still haven’t gotten quite good enough on our adjustments getting where we need to be at the end of the race. We kind of crept up on it but just never did get to where we needed to be to get the car free enough off the corner back to the gas.” IS THIS TEAM TO THE POINT WHERE YOU ARE DISAPPOINTED IF YOU DON’T CONTEND FOR THE WIN? “We’re disappointed. We were expecting a good top-five out of this run here this week and we were close. But still at the end of the race there, we were still just a little bit too tight. We’ve got to stay on top of our adjustments a little better and make better adjustments because some of the adjustments we make I went the wrong way a little bit. We’ve just got to get better at that.” DID THE WARM WEATHER TODAY THROW YOU A CURVE? “I really thought it was because I really thought the car was going to be a lot looser than what it was but it really didn’t. Actually we were pretty much the same that we were in practice. We probably could have went a little more on our adjustments before we started the race. We freed the car up a little bit but we should have done more.” IT SEEMS LIKE YOU RUN BETTER AND BETTER AS THE RACE GOES ON. “We do. We’re better and better on the long runs but we lose too much ground on the short go and really that kind of gets us behind. The long go, toward the end of the runs, we could run the fastest laps of anybody but on the short go we’d just lose too many spots. We’ve got to get better at the short-go and maintain the long-go.”

MONTOYA PRESS CONFERENCE

COMMENT ON YOUR RUN TODAY. “I thought it was pretty good. Our car run good all day. It was just a little too tight at the end. It would turn good until I got on the gas. Every time I got on the gas it’d just plow completely the front. I thought it was a good day, another top-10, and I think for everybody at Chip Ganassi Racing to have two cars in the top-10 is a big step forward and just got to try to keep it running.”

COMMENT ON THE INCIDENT WITH TONY STEWART. HAS THAT BEEN A DIFFICULTY FOR YOU? WHEN YOU GO LOW THE CAR SEEMS TO GET AWAY FROM YOU. “You can ask any driver, when you go low and the other guy just pins you down you lose some of the side grip in the car and you’re going to get loose. He was going in high enough that I couldn’t run high but low enough to really get me loose. I understand we’re racing and I’m okay with it. But if he does that, it’s going to get to a point if I want to pass him I’m going to go in a little deeper to make sure that I run a little bit harder. The car got out of my hands. We touched. And we just touched a little bit and I went a little lower from him, got on the gas, and I started to clear him and as I started to clear him they told me ‘Ooooh he just spun.’ I haven’t seen it but we just touched a little bit in the middle of the corner. I got really loose on the brakes going in and I just went into him a little bit. Before that we were racing pretty clean. I think generally the way it works here is somebody gets a run beside you and you try to run a little higher to make sure you give the guy enough air and you give him room. Otherwise it’s the other way around. I think if you race like that, people will still race you clean. He did that before. I don’t know why he was so aggressive. We still had like 100 laps to go.”

COMMENT ON JACKIE ROBINSON. “I know it’s a big day. They told me about it, I think it’s great. I think myself carrying that 42 as well I think is a big deal here in NASCAR. I’m a little bit of a different driver. I’m not American so I think it relates a little bit. I think it’s great. I know a little bit of what he did. They told me a story and to be honest, baseball is not very big in Colombia, not at all. A little bit on the coast, but where I grew up, I never played it in my life.”