charging Colombian driver Juan Pablo Montoya erased 113 races of futility Sunday, winning a long duel with Marcos Ambrose and the Sprint Cup race at Watkins Glen International. “It's nice,” Montoya said after his second Cup win – the other coming on the road course at Sonoma in 2007. “We executed right. We did what we had to all day and we really ran smart. The last few weeks have been really frustrating for the whole team because we've been so close to victory and it seemed to keep slipping away.” Frustration had mounted when crew chief Brian Pattie's pit strategy backfired at the previous two races. A late four-tire call likely cost Montoya a win at the Brickyard 400 and Montoya finished 16th a week ago at Pocono after starting second. Another questionable pit call was the culprit that led to harsh words over the radio. A prerace talk at Watkins Glen with team co-owner Chip Ganassi helped clear the air. Then Montoya went out, withstood repeated stalking and challenges from Ambrose, and won going away. “To tell you the truth, I feel more relieved than happy right now,” said Montoya, the first former Formula One driver to compete full-time in NASCAR. “It's been a really hard road. We've lost a lot of them, gave away a lot of them. It gets frustrating, everybody fighting.” At Sonoma, Montoya won with fuel mileage. He dominated at Watkins Glen, leading 74 of 90 laps, and beat Kurt Busch to the line by nearly 5 seconds. Montoya started third, and when McMurray, who started on the front row, got past polesitter Carl Edwards on the first lap, Montoya followed. He then passed McMurray on lap 5 to take a lead he would rarely relinquish. Montoya led the next 20 laps as Ambrose slowly picked his way through traffic, going from 11th to second by lap 17. From there, it became a two-car race until the final 15 laps, when the handling on Ambrose's No. 47 declined. Ambrose finished third, his third straight top-three finish at Watkins Glen, followed by AJ Allmendinger and Carl Edwards. McMurray, Tony Stewart, Kyle Busch, Jeff Burton and Jeff Gordon rounded out the top 10. Ambrose won his third straight Nationwide race over the 11-turn, 2.45-mile Watkins Glen layout Saturday. He was poised to capture his first Sprint Cup victory at Sonoma in June when things went awry. He stalled his No. 47 Toyota while leading under a late caution, was unable to keep pace, had to restart seventh when he couldn't get it refired, and finished sixth. He seemed destined to finally break through at The Glen, but the handling on the last set of tires was off and Kurt Busch slipped past him late. “It hurts,” said Ambrose, who announced recently that he was leaving JTG-Daugherty Racing after the season. “It doesn't feel nice. That last set of tires cost us the race.”
