Worry? Montoya's No. 42 team is doing anything but

LOUDON, N.H. -- They were under caution less than 100 laps into NASCAR's playoff opener at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, but they sounded like they were enjoying a Sunday drive. Juan Montoya and Brian Pattie were discussing some aspect of race strategy, and the driver advised the crew chief to not get too worked up over it. Worrying, Montoya said over the radio, wasn't going to change anything.

"Worrying was for last week," Pattie concurred.

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Worrying? Who's worrying? Certainly no one on the No. 42 team, which sambaed through its first Chase weekend with an ease that stood in stark contrast to the chaos all around them. No, they didn't win the race -- wily veteran Mark Martin thwarted the advance of the red-and-white Chevy, which was coming as if fired out of a catapult. But they led every practice session, they won the pole, and they led the most laps Sunday afternoon before finishing third behind Martin and Denny Hamlin. And they sent yet another message that they're going to be a factor in the championship race before all is said and done.

"We gave them something to talk about for the next week," Pattie told his team on the radio after the race. In only his sixth start on the technical New Hampshire race track, Montoya was the class of the field until the cars were bunched together by a late yellow flag. They laughed and told jokes on the radio under caution. Until the very end, there was rarely a moment when the driver sounded agitated. The Chase is supposed to be all about pressure and intensity and teeth-gnashing over every position on the race track. "Everyone panics," Hamlin said after an event comprised of tense restarts and banged fenders and enough side-by-side racing to fill an entire season.

Not Montoya. Right now, he doesn't even seem to know what pressure is.

"What's the pressure?" he asked after the race. "We made the Chase. From now on, anything above that, it's a bonus. Come here, first Chase race, sit on pole, finish [third], can I wish for anything else? Not really. A win would be nice, but we're getting there. That will come." (Continued)