South Florida Focus: Juan Pablo out to “spoil” at Texas; Helio just 32 points back of IndyCar lead

THIS SUNDAY

NASCAR/South Florida’s Juan Pablo Montoya: “[Sunday] is going to be interesting; it’s going to be the first 1.5-mile on a spoiler. That is going to make it quite challenging for everybody to see how the car changes. I don’t think it will be that different, but it will be fun, I think.”

 

Last fall at Texas, the race began with Jimmie Johnson holding a 184-point lead in the race for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Championship, but when the No. 48 crashed on Lap 3 Mark Martin seized the opportunity with a fourth-place finish that shaved 111 points off of his second-place deficit. With this weekend’s race back on the same southwest asphalt, there will be an entire field of Sprint Cup drivers hoping for déjà vu, with South Florida resident Juan Pablo Montoya (qualified 21st for Sunday) and Dale Earnhardt Jr. (qualified 9th) among them.

“We have got a long way to go, I’ll tell you that,” said Earnhardt. “We feel pretty confident about getting better, but we still feel like we have…a lot more that we can do better.”

Texas is the site for Sunday’s Race 8 of 36 in NASCAR’s 2010 Sprint Cup campaign (3 p.m. EST on FOX), which culminates with the crowning of a Sprint Cup Champion at Homestead-Miami Speedway Nov. 21.

 

 

THIS SUNDAY

INDYCAR/South Florida’s Helio Castroneves: “I can’t wait to go back to Long Beach. I have great memories of winning in 2001 and then returning last year after a missing [the season-opening] race. Now this year, after winning just this past weekend in Alabama…It’s going to be a great show for the fans.”

 

South Florida’s Helio Castroneves had quite the newsworthy ’09, and the dancing driver is again in the headlines after taking the checkered flag in Race 3 at Alabama. With the victory, Castroneves is just 32 points back of Will Power in the series Championship standings, and Helio is eyeing an IndyCar Series Championship crown Oct. 2 on his “home track” of Homestead-Miami.

Next up, the streets of Long Beach on Sunday (3:30 p.m. EST on VERSUS) for IndyCar Race 4 of 17 en route to IndyCar crowning its 2010 Champions at Homestead-Miami Speedway Oct. 2.

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