[Heeltoe6]

Lee: You are way off base, as a lot of people are, about Juan Montoya. (I kbnow you didn't want to hear this, but it's the truth) You have to remember that English is a second language to him. He's always withdrawn and hates talking to the press for fear of messing up. It comes of as superiority, but I can assure you it is nothing of the sort.

As for the specific interview, I saw it and Montoya didn't say that, don't know who's posting what, but they're trying to start somehting or have a biased opinion; and if you caught any of it on Raceday,RPM,etc, you gotta remember they're just looking for the juiciest soundbytes and take things way out of context. Montoya was very withdrawn (he was walking, had somewhere to go) and just said something to the effect of (paraphrase) "Yeah, you'd like to be on the pole, but really second is pretty good, and as far as the race goes, it really won't make much of a difference." After this, Webber kept pressing him, obviously fishing for something, but Juan didn't say much more. I'll grant it was obvious he didn't want to be talking to Webber, but who would. How do you think it feels to be knocked off the pole...please. Furthermore, Montoya didn't say anyhting about the weather, at least in this interview. If anything, Montoya was wholeheartedly indifferent, not mad, not angry, not rude...just apathetic. Speaking form personal experience, that can come off as cold a lot, but it really isn't.

As for Webber, got to criticize him for this, and that's too bad cause I love him in Nascar. But he (along with a lot of others...Artue, Sneva) have been trying to bait and trap drivers into blowing the whole cart/irl thing way out of proportion. Fortunately, drivers on all sides are handling themselves with class, saying it's just another race against the fastest 33 guys.

Another thing you have to remember is that Juan doesn't care about the indy 500; and that's not an air of arrogance, it's just that he sees it as another race. Growing up in Colombia, why would he have any affinity for it. So when the media tries to hype eevrything, he's not playing their game, and he comes across cold becuase of that. But he's not.

As far as calling out people for being rude, how bout Mark Dismore; he made some very gloating comments when Ray took the pole. Said he'd buy himself a Ray t-shirt. Now that's rude. Montoya may not have said anyhting nice about Ray, but he didn't trash him either.

Now, as for Button, I bet he's the only guy in F1 who would say that, unfortunately. I really like Button, btw, he's gonna be a great. Unfortunately, there isn't the respect for different forms of motorposrts from the racers themselves we had 30 years ago or so, where drivers would drive anything (f1, indy, trans-am, can-am, nascar) all in the same year. imho, the worst comes from F1, which dumps on everything else, mainly because the FIA is afraid another series could usurp it's dominance. The CART/irl thing is pretty bad as well, but that's for political reasons, and it's mostly rhetoric. Nascar gets a bad rap as well, but it's surprising to see how many drivers looking into it (all them open wheelers, plus a few touring var drivers). Surprisingly, I have seen sports cars drivers dumped on pretty badly by some poeple because it's viewed as amateur and that people mostly buy rides.