It’s an Easy Sunday Ride for Montoya

Juan Pablo Montoya dominated the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday like no one had in 30 years, and like no rookie had in 74 years, and then was too polite to admit that winning was as easy as he made it look.

But he giggled as he admitted that he’d joked a lot at 220 mph with his crew via radio--and that all race long, “I had a lot of fun, to tell you the truth.”

It was play for the 24-year-old Colombian, who had never before driven an Indy Racing League car in a race. He had come from the archrival league, CART, for one shot at the 500. Montoya’s team owner, Chip Ganassi, bought IRL cars--Aurora-powered G-Force chassis--in order to make the first appearance at Indy by a major CART team since 1995.

Montoya devoured the race, passing pole-sitter Greg Ray on the 27th of the 200 laps, and leading a total of 167.

Not since Al Unser Sr. led 190 laps in 1970 had any Indy victory been so convincing. Not since the legendary Frank Lockhart led 95 of 160 laps of the rain-shortened 1926 race had a rookie winner been as dazzling. Technically, the last rookie to win the 500 was Graham Hill in 1966, but Hill came to Indy as an established Formula One driver who had already won the world championship.

Rookie is also a relative term for Montoya, who was new only to the IRL cars and to the 91-year-old Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He dominated the CART series last year, winning seven races and the season championship as a “rookie” there. Previously he’d been in training in Europe for the elite Formula One series--where he’s expected to return next season--where drivers are taught to go all-out, all the time.

That’s the way he ran Indy, even though it’s supposed to be taboo.

After a brief duel with Ray, Montoya relinquished the lead only in brief periods after pit stops. And he was seriously challenged only in the minds of the runners-up.

Second-place finisher Buddy Lazier complained that some of his IRL mates held him up in traffic, while giving way to Montoya.

“I got stuck, I got hammered, I got boxed in, and they were letting him go,” said Lazier, who finished 7.184 seconds behind Montoya. That wasn’t quite the case. Actually, Montoya often ran up on flocks of lapped cars and zipped through them with superb timing--and then when Lazier would get to the same flock, he would struggle.

“He couldn’t get good enough runs” on the traffic, Montoya noticed of Lazier. “I managed to get good enough runs on everybody. The reason it’s not easy out there at all is that the traffic makes it so complicated. You can get to a car really fast, but you have to know where to catch them so you can get the momentum and pass them on the straightaways. If you lose the momentum, you’re stuck.”

Third-place finisher Eliseo Salazar acknowledged the brilliance of Montoya, saying, “Many people have compared him to Ayrton Senna [the late three-time Formula One world champion] and maybe Juan will be. He obviously is an awesome race driver.”

But Salazar also complained about lapped traffic. He said the race strategy of his car owner, A.J. Foyt, was ruined late in the race when “Raul Boesel [who wound up 16th] got in the way--he was impossible to pass.”

“I thought this was going to be an aggressive race where you had to be aggressive all the time,” said Salazar, who in fact turned out to be correct. “But A.J. wanted to wait. The strategy was perfect, but Raul got in the way.”

Actually, Montoya had run Foyt’s strategy into the ground earlier than that. Conventional wisdom at Indy is to be conservative for the first 400 miles and then sprint for the final 100. Montoya sprinted for 500.

The runners-up could make all the excuses they wanted, but even if Lazier or Salazar had gotten close to Montoya, “We had something left in our bag for them,” the winner said.

That confirmed appearances that Montoya, overwhelming as he was, was actually just cruising--for him--and could have shown more speed than he did.

After Lap 33, no one led the race other than Montoya and his Ganassi teammate, Jimmy Vasser. Montoya gave up the lead to Vasser for Laps 176-79 after a pit stop, but then led the rest of the way. Vasser was forced to pit for fuel with only four laps to go, and wound up seventh.

All in all, that single CART team overshadowed what the IRL had to offer in the way of pizazz to enliven the race. Two-time winner Al Unser Jr., back after a five-year absence, never was a factor, and his engine failed only 66 laps into the race, coinciding almost precisely with pole-sitter Ray’s minor crash into the retaining wall.

Montoya refused to gloat on behalf of CART. “We didn’t come here carrying a CART banner.”

When the CART boycott began in 1996, Ganassi had been one of the most hard-line team owners. He forecast that the 500 might not remain renowned as the world’s greatest motor race.

But Sunday, after his capitulation to politics and technical rules brought him triumph on the track, Ganassi said, “This is the greatest race in the world.”

Then he grinned and added, “That makes this the greatest win in the world, right?”