Montoya continues to roll and remains one to watch

Can Juan Montoya win the Chase? Without question. The question is: Will he?

Three races into the 10-race playoffs, JPM is 51 points behind leader Mark Martin. Thing is, there's a long way to go before Homestead and Montoya's track record at the remaining seven venues is not so ... well, Juanderful.

Inside the Numbers

JPM down the stretch

Track	Races	W	T5	T10	Avg.
Fontana	5	0	0	0	22.0
Charlotte	5	0	0	1	27.4
Martinsville	5	0	0	1	12.6
Talladega	5	0	1	1	18.6
Texas	5	0	0	2	20.4
Phoenix	5	0	0	0	21.4
Homestead	3	0	0	0	22.0

However, Montoya is the only Chase driver with three consecutive top-five finishes, and that continues to buoy the No. 42 team.

"It was pretty average," Montoya said of his day at Kansas, where he finished fourth. "We just couldn't balance [the car] the way we wanted. To finish fourth, with the way the car was handling, I'm pretty happy. We fought hard all day to get the car handling right. It was a long day but we got it together toward the end and were running fast lap times.

"Three top-five finishes in the first three Chase races is huge, you know -- and it's what we need to do every weekend."

The key for Montoya will be to continue to points race (hey, it's paid off so far) and take advantage of an opportunity (Martinsville?) to take the checkers; he must roll the dice for a maximum points day to try to offset a potential bad finish, or another win by Martin, Jimmie Johnson or Tony Stewart.

"A championship is beating everybody else," Montoya said. "We come here to race and to win races, and to win races you've got to beat everyone else. We know that we've got good cars. We know we're in a very good position but at the end of the day it's 10 races."

Considering that Montoya has only one top-five finish and five top-10s in 33 starts at the next seven tracks, "can he" vs. "will he" remains one of the storylines to watch.

FIVE RANDOM THOUGHTS

• ... For all the woes surrounding on-track performance at Roush, Greg Biffle has been a model of consistency. Kansas marked the sixth top-10 finish in the past 10 races for the No. 16 with an average finish of 9.6 in that time; the Biff's worst finish during the stretch is 20th at Michigan.

• ... There's plenty of other things the fans could be upset about, including this: Should the governing body issue a "warning" to Team X because its equipment is getting too close to tolerance limits? Let 'em break the rules and suffer the consequences. That said, kudos to Hendrick Motorsports for getting every macro it can.

• ... David Reutimann was an afterthought while he was "mathematically" in the running for a playoff berth coming down the stretch at Bristol, Atlanta and Richmond. He has three top-15 finishes since the Chase began. I hope next year he can get over the hump. I'd pay to ask him questions each week; Canned Answers 101 is not on his resume.

• ... And just when you thought Dale Earnhardt Jr. was going to put it all together. He led 41 laps (the first time the No. 88 had been on point since Aug. 16 at Michigan) but a loose lug nut put him behind the 8 ball before a blown engine put him behind the wall.

• ... George Gillett gets it. I couldn't care less if Gillett goes into business with three more Saudi royals. Fact is, you must have cash to compete in NASCAR's national touring series, and we're not living in a vacuum. It's not like Richard Petty Motorsports is spreading sand throughout the shop and requiring Jerusalem cruisers. Bottom line: The cash infusions that teams have received in recent years are covered with international fingerprints. (Continued)