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Cover Story
Built for Speed
Colombian-born racecar driver Juan Pablo Montoya speeds right past
his competition at NASCAR in his pursuit of being the fastest.
Story by Marissa Rodriguez
Photos by Pablo Garcia
When Juan Pablo Montoya prepares for a race, there’s
no room to think about danger. Although the NASCAR driver takes
his No. 42 Target Chevrolet car around the track at a mind-numbing
230 miles an hour, with the threat of bursting into flames should
a collision occur being very real, worrying about peril would only
be a distraction.
“It’s a mental thing,” says Montoya via phone
from Bristol, Tennessee, where he was preparing for a race the very
next day. “I never really found racing dangerous. I think
there is as good of a chance [of being hurt] walking down the street.
If you crash a car going 50 miles per hour, you would get more hurt
than I would. I’ve crashed so many times already, but I have
never broken anything in a race.”
He approaches the track with steely determination and a will to
keep in control. “I try to stay pretty calm,” he says.
“The excitement goes up and goes down. If you get excited
you have to try to not get overly excited, the same with disappointment.”
Forgoing superstition or pre-race ritual, with the exception of
making sure his seat belt is on tight, Montoya instead braces himself
to the task at hand: winning. “You know what you need to do,”
he says.
At 33, the native of Bogotá, Colombia has an illustrious
past where winning is concerned. Having raced since childhood, he
has participated in several areas of motorsports.
Montoya began his professional career in Formula 3000, proceeding
to CART, then to Formula One and finally to NASCAR. In each he has
made his mark. Among his biggest accomplishments have been winning
the Formula 3000 Champion in 1998, CART Champion and Rookie of the
Year in 1999, Indy 500 Winner and Rookie of the Year in 2000, Monaco
Grand Prix Winner in 2003, 24 Hours of Daytona Overall Winner in
the 2007-2008 season and being named that year’s NASCAR Nextel
Cup Rookie of the Year. It was the first time a Latino earned the
title.
Montoya is one of the few Latinos behind the wheel at NASCAR races,
but his successes paired with the organization’s push for
attention among Latinos have caused interest in the sport to grow.
A study reveals that 38 percent of Latinos call themselves NASCAR
fans, at least casually. In 2005, NASCAR released data stating that
8.9 percent of their fan base was Latino, a small growth from 2001’s
rate of 8.1 percent. In fact, of the handful of drivers that have
raced in a NASCAR competition, include two major heavy hitters:
Pedro Rodriguez, who first raced in 1959, and Mexican-native Carlos
Contreras, made his debut in 1999.
Although he admits to thinking about the fact that there aren’t
many Hispanics within the NASCAR family, Montoya says that leaving
his imprint as a Latino in NASCAR is not his driving force.
“I am one of the first Latinos to be able to make it to the
top leagues,” he says. “[But] I don’t do it for
the legacy, I do it because I love it. It’s more of a personal
thing.”
The former Formula One racer attributes his successes in the motorsport
to his great hunger for achievement. “I think you have to
be so determined to be able to succeed in racing,” he says.
“You have to be more determined, more than anyone else.”
Would he describe himself as competitive? “Oh yeah,”
he says. But, he adds, it’s a must-have quality for any elite
racer. And among elite racers he has made his name known. As part
of the Earnhart Ganassi Racing team, Montoya and his No. 42 car
team collected two Top 5, three Top 10 and seven Top 15 finishes
in 2008. They also went on to come in as runner up in the Talladega
Superspeedway race.
In his latest achievement, Montoya took 9th place at the Bristol
Motor Speedway race, which marked his first Top 10 finish of 2009.
Although his work will take him to Virginia’s Martinsville
Speedway, Fort Worth’s Texas Motor Speedway, Arizona’s
Phoenix International Raceway, and Alabama’s famous Talladega
Superspeedway in the coming weeks, Montoya has traveled the world
in his quest for speed. He has run in China, Japan, Belgium, Turkey,
Hungary, the U.K. Germany, Canada, Mexico, Monoco, Spain, Australia,
Malaysia, Bahrain and many others. But no matter where he races,
the determination is the same.
“Every week is a different track, every week is a different
challenge,” he says. “Your favorite place is where you
run really well. I am not really biased. At this level you have
to be good everywhere.”
One of the places he is revered is in his native Colombia. Now living
in Miami’s posh Brickell neighborhood, Montoya is deeply connected
to his Colombian roots. He has even built a foundation for underserved
children. Fórmula Sonrisa, a non-profit developed by Montoya
and his wife Connie Freydell, was created with the philosophy that
children benefit academically from extracurricular sports and physical
education.
At this time the foundation is operating programs in three cities:
Villavicencio, Cartagena and Ibagué, where the soccer program
has enrolled 120 children from poor neighborhoods. Montoya has even
hosted NASCAR officials at the foundation’s Colombia locations.
As of this year, more than 5,700 children are participating.
“We really wanted to give something back to Colombia; my career
came out of there. That helped me get to where I am, and it was
important,” he says.
After successes on the track and in the community in both the U.S.
and Colombia, Montoya still has plenty of goals. His No. 1 is to
become a major force in the sport. “It’s not easy, but
we have been working on it really hard.”
As individual as racing seems, Montoya says the “we”
is a chief component to first place finishes. Crew members, mechanics,
everyone involved in the process is important come race day. “A
team is a very important factor in how you perform,” he says.
“People don’t realize it but it’s a huge team
sport and without them you are nobody.”
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