Montoya frustrated with Kahne
Juan Pablo Montoya is frustrated by recent run-ins with Kasey Kahne, which have cost him critical points in his quest for making this year's Chase for the Sprint Cup
The Earnhardt Ganassi driver was first involved in an incident with Kahne three weeks ago on the final restart at Pocono while fighting for victory, when the Richard Petty driver made an aggressive dive on his inside.
Then, last week at Michigan, Kahne clipped the left-rear tyre of Montoya's car following a restart, causing him a puncture that dropped him a lap down.
Montoya says he has not spoken to Kahne recently and seems puzzled by his aggressive approach given that both of them are trying to secure a spot in this year's season play-off.
"I haven't talked to Kasey at all," said Montoya. "I know my crew chief talked to him last night. He talked to him about it but I haven't. I don't know. I don't get what he's trying to do.
"I think the position we're in, we've got to be smart about not wrecking each other and get into the Chase. I'm OK. It's just frustrating because you just want to have nice, quiet days."
Kahne shrugged off the subject saying he doesn't have any issues with Montoya and that none of their incidents have been intentional but simply part of racing.
"It's racing stuff," Kahne said. "Everybody made a big deal about it, but I barely touched him. It looked so bad because his tyre went flat, but you can't aim for somebody's tyre. I like Juan. I get along with him fine. It's just racing."
Montoya arrives at Bristol this weekend in seventh place in the standing, just three points ahead of Kahne. The Colombian is positive ahead of the 500-lap race, at the venue where he claimed his first top-ten result of the year.
"We finished top-10 last time we were here and I think we've got a good car," said Montoya. "We found a lot of stuff on the car in the last few weeks is making the car run faster and we've got a couple of good ideas for this week so it should be good. We should have a good race car here."
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