Montoya's crew chief replaced again

Elledge had recently swapped roles with Donnie Wingo, changing from his job as crew chief of the No. 41 car of Reed Sorenson, to work with Montoya from Talladega onwards. But despite a second place finish on their first race together, results have taken a downturn in the last two points events.

Montoya was 32nd at Richmond, where he was involved in a multi-car crash and then at Darlington he only managed a 25th place, coming from an eight-race streak of top-20 finishes from Fontana to Talladega.

Starting from next weekend's Coca-Cola 600, Brian Pattie will work alongside Montoya as interim crew chief.

Pattie, who has been with Chip Ganassi Racing since 2004, has served mostly as Nationwide Series crew chief for the team and also worked alongside Dario Franchitti on his ARCA and NASCAR debuts last year.

Pattie will be the fourth different crew chief Montoya works with in the Sprint Cup Series. Steve Boyer worked alongside him on his Cup debut at Homestead in 2006 and then Donnie Wingo served as his crew chief last year and for the first eight races of this season before Elledge took over the role.

Team officials were unavailable for comment.