Montoya, Wingo make unlikely pairing work

SONOMA, Calif. -- They dangled flags striped yellow, blue and red from the railing of the main grandstand, and cheered as Juan Montoya celebrated in Victory Lane. They chanted "Co-lom-bia! Co-lom-bia!" so loud and vigorously, it seemed like one little corner of Infineon Raceway had been transformed into a northern suburb of Bogota.

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Welcome to the new NASCAR, a sport whose international profile took a large step forward Sunday when the former Formula One star broke through to record his first victory on the Nextel Cup circuit. And in the middle of the champagne-spraying mob was burly, bespectacled Donnie Wingo from little Spartanburg, S.C., a crew chief whose repeated message of patience kept Montoya on track to win.

"Save all the fuel you can," Wingo said over the radio, again and again in a continuing mantra that accompanied the lap times relayed to Montoya each time he crossed the start-finish line. Wingo urged his driver to take it easy, to be smooth in the corners, to coast downhill once he overtook Jamie McMurray for the lead. All the math said that they wouldn't make it, that they'd be one lap short. But somehow Montoya babied the No. 42 car around the hilly layout, and joined native Italian Mario Andretti and Canadian Earl Ross as the only foreign-born winners on NASCAR's top tour.

As he bore down on the final corner, Montoya unleashed a celebratory scream. Wingo, on his way to Victory Lane for the first time since he won with Geoffrey Bodine at this very same road course 14 long years ago, had a very different reaction.

"Can I throw up now?" he said over the radio, and with good reason. It had been a tense, stomach-wringing finish to a stressful week, one that began Friday when what Montoya thought was a good car qualified 32nd at a track where no one had ever come from further back than 13th to win.

"I was just shocked when [Wingo] told me the lap time after qualifying," Montoya said. "I thought he was joking. I looked at the stand and saw he was telling the truth and thought, 'Man, we sucked.'"

Even car owner Chip Ganassi, a winner in NASCAR's top series for the first time in five years, was worried. "I've got to tell you, Friday night I was looking at the ceiling a lot laying in bed, I can tell you that," he said. (Continued)