Montoya sees progress despite DQ

The Colombian had set the pole lap on Friday qualifying at the mile-and-a-half oval but the technical inspection at the end of the session revealed that the gas pressure on the rear shock absorbers of his No. 42 car exceeded the maximum allowed.

The rulebook states the pressures should not be above 75 pounds but in Montoya's car the reading revealed they were 10 pounds higher.

"It kind of sucks because we have worked really hard the last two or three months on our program to run well at the mile-and-a-halfs," said Montoya's crew chief Brian Pattie. "The shocks haven't even been worked on since I started [work] here.

"It's just very, very frustrating that we bust our tails week in and week out, go to the test and run really good, come here and apply the same stuff on the car, change some more stuff in the tech line, qualify on the pole, and get it taken away 10 minutes later."

Montoya has vowed to keep focused despite this weeks' setback as he feels his team has move forward on every area. He claims his team have been working very hard to overcome a tough middle part of the season, even if their results have yet to show for it.

"I think the whole organization is getting better," Montoya said. "Some things have been happening the last few weeks that's been annoying. In Dover (last week), we were running in the top-10 and blew up a right front tire. There have been a lot of things that have frustrated us (and kept us) from really good finishes.

"It gets to a point where you have to keep trying and keep doing what you have to do. We've changed our cars a lot this year. It takes time. It takes time to build new cars. It' takes time to develop them. We're started testing more. Brian Pattie has done an amazing job with the guys. We've been working so hard."

The Ganassi driver says the team has made progress in several different areas in the development of their cars and believes the continuity of the job of crew chief Brian Pattie has been key after he had to go through two crew chief changes during the first half of the season.

"From the bump-stops to making lighter cars to making different geometries to trying different spindles," Montoya said. "This year we changed so many crew chiefs. The crew chief has the idea of how to run the car. You need to give them the opportunity to start with to run what they think is the best.

"You have to start from a baseline and build it from there. Every time that you start building something, it changed. It was pretty rough."

Chip Ganassi Racing still has to name a teammate for the Montoya next year, after Reed Sorenson announced recently that he would leave the team to join Gillett Evernham. Montoya is confident on his boss making the right choice on who will drive the No. 41 car in 2009.

"I think Chip (Ganassi) will decide who is going to be the best for the team," he said. "We need to work together as a team. In his entire career, (Chip) always picked good people and I believe that 41 car needs somebody because you need somebody with motivation and willing to go the extra mile."

Montoya will start from forty-second place on Sunday at Kansas Speedway.