Juan Pablo Montoya: "Hey, did you see that lap, man? Yep, first Sprint Cup pole! Uh-huh! Wait, what did you say? They disqualified me? What the #%^&?!?!"
While the above quote is not actually attributable to JPM, you can bet he wasn't happy to be starting 42nd on Sunday at Kansas Speedway after posting Friday's qualifying session fastest time.
Montoya dropped a lap Friday afternoon at Kansas City, Kan.-track of 172.150mph to put him at the top of the grid for the first time in his Sprint Cup career, celebrated his pole with the obligatory photo shoot, and talked to the media about how exciting it was for his No. 42 team:
"It's huge. There's times where it's getting darker and cooling down and you run at the end and all of a sudden you pick up a half a second and you're up there. But we were in the middle of the pack and the track didn't really change that much. We were genuinely fast," said Montoya.
But now, he's starting in the back thanks to a technical violation during the post-qualifying inspection process that revealed his two rear shocks had pressure levels higher than allowed by NASCAR.
NASCAR instituted rules on the shock assemblies a few years ago mainly in the name of safety after teams started running the suspension devices near their explosion breaking point to help the car handle. Essentially, its just not safe for slender metal tubes to be filled with gas at a near breaking point, so NASCAR stepped in.
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The main benefactor from Montoya's issue? Hendrick Motorsports' Jimmie Johnson, or more concisely, the guy who always seems to be there to take advantage of any situation.
Johnson will start out front for Sunday's race with the rest of the Top-5 now including Mark Martin, Matt Kenseth, Elliott Sadler and Martin Truex Jr.
Failing to score a spot in Sunday's field were Johnny Sauter and Michael McDowell.
