Instead the Indy 500 victor and the Eagles defensive lineman got in the vehicle and took off, with Montoya doing donuts in the parking lot of the NovaCare Complex.
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Not only would a victory at Pocono this weekend help Rahal in his quest for the points championship, he would also join his father as a victor at the track. He has led the points all season but now is ahead of Graham Rahal by just nine points after two poor finishes, at Iowa and Mid-Ohio.
The IndyCar Series remains on a knife-edge with Power fifth in the standings, 59 points behind Juan Montoya.
“We’ve had a good year”, Montoya said in a teleconference Wednesday. “But maybe it hasn’t hurt us as much as a start like that normally would have on the championship because nobody has been on a streak”. “Yeah. But deserving it and getting it are two different things”. “We just have to keep our head on, and I think Montoya is the kind of guy you want on your driver’s team when it comes down to a fight”. “You can’t really know what’s going to happen”.
That brings us to 2015 where, for the first time in many years, an IndyCar season has taken place without a significant run by one or more drivers to try and snatch the championship from its leader.
“It’s always important to finish the year strong”. Dixon won the 2013 Pocono IndyCar race when the series returned to the track for the first time since 1989…
Montoya, who won the series’ opener at St. Petersburg in March and hasn’t been headed since, hasn’t run well lately and is in danger of losing his nine-point lead.
Graham Rahal has outscored Montoya in each of the last four races to tighten the lead.
Montoya is the defending champion of this race.
“Even without winning we are still in the thick of the championship race once again”, he said. “I think we are starting to figure out the aero kit; starting to get in a better place here and become a little more competitive”.
However, Rahal is riding the largest dose of momentum. He has been tough down the stretch with five straight top 10s. He is calling Pocono and Sonoma “two of the biggest races” his career. Will Pocono park him at No. 1?
“We’re optimistic we’ll have a good crowd”, Igdalsky said earlier this week. Though his issue was obviously the worst for Chip Ganassi Racing, it wasn’t a stellar session for any of the team’s four cars. Not a chance, mate. Bobby Rahal won at Pocono in 1988.
There’s also this about Montoya: The only other time he’s held a series lead this late in a season, in CART in 1999, he won the title.
Simon Pagenaud joins his Penske teammate Castroneves on the front row.
At 40, Castroneves is running out of years to fill the lone void on an otherwise sterling resume.
An impressive charge over the last five races has put Rahal in position to challenge for the title. Pocono could point Castroneves toward the right track of ending the drought at Sonoma.
“I don’t know why the fans don’t come”, Igdalsky said.
“It’s going to be right down to the wire”, said Roger Penske, owner of Montoya’s auto and those of fellow championship contenders Helio Castroneves and Will Power.
He finished a solid fourth and 10th in two Pocono races driving for Penske. The track has attracted crowds of around 30,000 for the last two races, and it’s going to require a bigger turnout this year for the race to remain on the calendar. He has scored more points (195) in that span than the other four drivers in the top five of the standings. Since the finale at Sonoma is a double-points race, any driver within 104 points of the leader after Sunday’s race at Pocono will have a shot at the crown.
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Tackling Sonoma for the first time, the former European F3 Open champion adapted well on his first runs, with team manager Ricardo Nault describing him as a “true professional” who impressed with “his ability both on-track and during the debriefing process”.
