I had an opportunity prior to the race this weekend at Watkins Glen to participate in an interview with Juan Pablo Montoya. Juan Pablo was born in 1975 in Bogota, Colombia. He now resides in Miami, Florida with his wife, Connie Freydell. They have three children: Sebastian, Paulina and Manuela. He drives the #42 Target Chevrolet for Chip Ganassi Racing.
It’s such a beautiful area here in Watkins Glen. Do you get a chance to visit some of the local sights when you’re here?
JPM: Aw, No. I come here on Thursday about 3 o’clock and we’re busy with meetings and things. A lot of us bring kids to the track. They have some things for the kids of the drivers to do. Most of them do that, but some don’t like it and they just stay in the trailers and watch TV all day.
Is Watkins Glen the kind of track you like coming to?
JPM: You know it’s one of those tracks where I know we’re going to finish well. If the car is running good I’ll be in contention and if the car is bad I’ll still end up finishing 5th, 6th, 7th.
How do you prepare yourself to run at Watkins Glen?
JPM: This is more of my background. This is what I’m used to. Most of us try to muscle the car. If it’s running good the car responds. If it doesn’t you can spin out. This track is fast. You try to get the most out of it.
Between all the different series you’ve run, which track is your favorite?
JPM: I’d have to say Malaysia. It’s so quick. Japan was fun. It looked like the turns were really quick on TV but not really. You’re like in 2nd gear barely going. Like Sonoma, you’re going around in like 2nd gear just peddling the car. Here (Watkins Glen) you’re on the gas.
What are your favorite NASCAR tracks?
JPM: This one (Watkins Glen) is one of my favorites. Otherwise Dover and Bristol I like. The high bank tracks I like the best.
Do you have any business on the side?
JPM: Not really. It’s hard. You have to understand that I started the season on January 6th with the 24 hour race. And I’m not done until the week before Thanksgiving. In the whole year we have two weekends off. Actually this year it was only one week because I did some testing. Every week we do something. For example this week we went to St. Jude Hospital in Memphis. Target has these Target Houses where they help families who have sick children. So when the kids are sick they stay there from between 9 days and 3 years to provide free support for the families. We go there to visit the kids and play with the kids and it’s a lot of fun.
Does your wife ever go with you to visit the kids at the Hospital?
JPM: Yeah, sometimes. I’ve been going since I was like what, 24? It’s hard sometimes you know. You have one kid then more. It’s hard. You tear up.
I know you have your own charity called “Formula Smiles Foundation”. A foundation to help needy Colombian children. Can you tell us a little about that?
JPM: It’s to try to get the kids off the street. Get the kids to learn how to play together. If you’re a kid and you have time off we all think of what bad thing we going to do now. I did when I was a kid. So when you get 5 or 6 kids together the bad things escalate. So if you can take those 6 kids with all that energy into sports its good. It’s good we can help about 5,000 kids a year. If you don’t go to school you don’t play. We want them to attend school.
In the last year your Ganassi organization has undergone a tremendous amount of changes. Do you think they’ve been successful?
JPM: Oh yeah. We’ve run good. Last week I made a big mistakes. We made a lot of mistakes early in the year. Things breaking. In California I had the shifter come off in my hand. The fuel pump broke at Bristol. We ran out of gas in Sonoma. You know what I mean, as a team we’ve had like 8 races where we ran into problems. When you have that many it’s hard to make the Chase. You might get away with two. We’ve put ourselves in a hole. It happens. Our cars are better. Are we where Hendricks is? No, but we have the right people and we’re going in the right direction.
Who is the driver you trust the most?
JPM: Who I truly respect on the track and who I think we respect each other a lot? I know when we’re racing on the track and we give each other room it’s Tony (Stewart). Tony and I have a real good relationship. I get out of the way for him and he gets out of the way for me. It makes life easy.
Do you have a list that you don’t have that same relationship with?
JPM: The 41 others (laughs). The hardest guy to pass is your teammate. Really. It’s a pain in the butt. With someone else you don’t mind rubbing him or moving him out of the way. But with your teammate it’s like I know if I move him out of the way I’m gonna hear about it.
Speaking of teammates, tell us a little about your teammate Jamie McMurray.
JPM: (Laughs) Funny story. We had a chance to play golf at Indy a couple weeks ago. He has a germ phobia. Bad. It creeps him out to just shake hands. Anyways, we were playing in this tournament and some guy was following us around. On the 18th green he asked for an autograph and I said sure. Well, this guy was like 350 pounds. It’s hot, it’s 94 degrees out and he’s sweating bad. I mean bad. So I said to him, do me a favor? Go give Jamie a great big hug. I’ve never seen Jamie so pissed off.
To learn more about Juan’s charity, the Formula Smiles Foundation go to: http://www.formulasonrisas.com/2011/ . We wish him all the best with the cause.
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