As the biggest Juan Pablo Montoya fan on the face of the earth, this is going to hurt me a lot more than it hurts him. And that is part of the problem.

I realize some bloggers think they are journalists and they have to maintain a level of objectivity. I am not one of those people. I have opinions and I express them, and while I think I am the most objective person I know; I hate Kyle Busch and love Juan Pablo Montoya. I love Montoya more than I hate Kyle Busch in fact, which puts JPM in the category above my dog, but below my children. My wife still tells the story of when my buddy called me to tell me that Juan was coming to NASCAR, and I am quoted as saying, “dude, you just gave me chills.”  I’m not proud of that fact by the way.

I would have rather heard he was coming back to Indycar, but NASCAR was good enough. He was under appreciated in F1 anyhow. Then came the Grand-Am 24 hour of Daytona involvement and overall win. It was almost perfect. But he didn’t dominate in NASCAR; not with any frequency. He showed moments of great car control. He got three Nationwide and Sprint cup wins combined on road courses.

This weekend the Sprint Cup cars at back on a road course, and if Montoya has any shot of making the Chase, he needs to win this weekend at Sonoma. Montoya has the talent to be competing for a Cup championship. I realize he isn’t driving a Hendrick or Roush-Fenway rig, so he’s at a disadvantage, but he should be having more success than he has.

When Montoya came to NASCAR he talked about how great a series it is for a family man. Compared to F1, I’m sure he’s right. Apparently if you follow his twitter, it is also a great series for aspiring amateur-celebrity golfers, radio control airplanes, and windsurfing. Don’t get me wrong, dude has a right to have a good time; and he’s earned it. But I don’t see the hunger, or tenacity of a Kyle Busch, or even a Jimmie Johnson in this guy. It is hard to imagine the success he could have with their motivation.

Now is the time for Juan to cement his legacy.  I believe Juan is a free agent at the end of this year.  I would love to see him in a Gibbs car, or a Roush car.  That won’t happen, but it sure would aid his cementing.  He has young kids that he appears to take an involvement with. As a person in a similar situation I can appreciate how it can take away somewhat from your professional career. No one will argue that JPM isn’t one of the all time greats. His resume speaks for itself. The NASCAR experiment has gone on long enough that we can give it a grade. It is definitely a disappointment, just like my college career. I’d give him a C- at this point.  An A for leisure activities and enjoying all that racing can afford someone in his position though

Montoya

.  Which given my track record, is probably what I would do as well.  Still in this position I get to throw stones.  So lob away I will.

I’m callin’ it TacoGate!

For those of you that live under a rock I’ll cover the basics of this story first.  During last Saturday’s ESPN coverage of the Ohio State – Minnesota game Chris Spielman asked Bob Griese “where Montoya was?” a reference to his position in The Chase.  Griese doing his best impersonation of a completely uninformed xenophobe responded, “He’s out having a taco.”

OK, now that we’re all caught up we can move on to all the reasons this incident and the coverage of it piss me off.  After that we’ll get to the part that reaffirms why Juan Pablo is so friggin’ awesome in my book.

So this isn’t the first time a sportscaster has said something stupid, it definitely won’t be the last.  It should also be noted that this probably isn’t the worse offense ever committed by someone in this position.  I think the worst was probably Jimmy The Greek, but that’s just my opinion.  Immediately after the broadcast where Griese committed the offense he issued and apology.  I think he’s issued a bunch more since.  Who hasn’t said something completely stupid before?  We all have.  Who hasn’t offended someone with said stupid remark?  Yep, same group.  I think I  may have more than most.  (Don’t think so?  Keep reading dumb ass!)  The problem with this is that it had obvious ethnic overtones and what made it even more worse was that the ethnic overtones were completely wrong.

That’s what makes the whole thing so ridiculously drop on the flow, get a cramp in your gut, piss your pants funny.  It’s like Griese told a Jewish joke with a Polish Joke punch line.  It’s too bad that the rest of America seems to be equally uninformed because they all quickly picked up on it as offensive.

I guess I don’t have much more to say about this one.  Just same random angry ramblings.  I’ll close with two points.

Come on America, we can do better than this.  Our time on the top of the heap is limited so we’d better get off our asses and not only drop our prejudices about other cultures but maybe it wouldn’t hurt to learn a thing or two about them.  For Christ’s sake there is a guy from Colombia gunning for the 2009 Sprint Cup Championship, if that doesn’t tell you things are changing I don’t know what will.

And finally, throw up some devil horns for JPM.  When asked for a comment on the matter earlier in the week JPM simply stated that he had no comment and that, “I don’t even know who he is” of Griese.  Bad ass!  Add to that the tweet that he sent out around lunch time today, “Guess what I’m having for lunch…..TACOS!!!!!….and I’m serious about it!!!!”

Touche JPM, Touche!