Montoya plays down Raines incident

On lap 375 Montoya was overtaken by Raines after a long battle for ninth position, and the Ganassi driver tried to get the place back from the veteran under braking immediately at Turn 1, as they started the next lap.

Both cars made contact and while Raines spun into the wall with several damages to his car, Montoya was able to carry on and eventually finish 16th.

Raines was not happy with the Colombian, claiming that if he is as good as people say, he should be able to avoid running in the back of another car.

"I don't know, it's just racing; at short tracks, things like that are going to happen," Montoya said about the incident during a teleconference at Richmond International Raceway, where he is taking part in a two-day Car of Tomorrow test.

"You hit some guys, some guys hit you, but you don't really do it on purpose or anything.

"The guy went for the inside, I went for the inside, he braked really early and when I went to brake it was too late, ran in the back of him and took him out. It's not like you want to do it on purpose."

Montoya also said that he had contact with backmarkers while trying to overtake them, but believes it's just the nature of short-track racing that creates such situations, which he compared with bump-cars.

"At the same time, even when you're passing backmarkers, they're trying to keep up their place and they keep hitting you and you can't really expect anything different from a short track.

"I think that's what I like about short-tracks. It's like bump-cars."

Montoya will take the weekend off from the Busch race at Nashville, where he will be replaced by Ganassi development driver Kevin Hamlin. The Colombian's next Cup race will be at Texas, on April 15.