Sabates proud that team is succeeding with less

He doesn't maintain as high a profile in NASCAR as he once did, but make no mistake: Felix Sabates is still around and full of colorful, honest opinions.

Now a minority owner for the company known officially as Earnhardt Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates, he talked at length with reporters last weekend about this year's emergence of EGR driver Juan Montoya, what he believes NASCAR is doing right these days, and what they could perhaps be doing to make the sport better.

Staying focused

Despite a disappointing 35th at Lowe's, Juan Montoya still has his eyes on the championship.

• Complete story
• Tough night for Chasers
• Sabates: JPM breakthrough

Question: Sometimes he seems almost nonchalant about it, but how badly does Juan want to win a championship?

Sabates: He may not always show it publicly, but he wants to win a championship very badly. He's very intense. You [in the media] don't see that side of him; we see that side of him. He doesn't want to sound like a rah-rah-rah guy -- but inside of him, he is very serious.

Earnhardt was like that. He was like, 'So I won my seventh championship; that's no big deal.' Montoya is the same way. Some people are just not that rah-rah-rah type of person on the outside.

Q: You said all along that this was sort of a three-year plan to have him emerge as a contender, didn't you?

Sabates: There was no doubt in mine or Chip's mind that Year Three was going to be a turning point for Juan. We weren't worried about it.

Q: Why was that?

Sabates: He saw one oval track in his whole life. That was the Indy 500, and he won the race. He never drove on oval tracks. ... So he comes here to drive on the oval tracks, and our car is like a taxicab. He was used to driving those sophisticated, $100 million or $120 million Formula One cars.

I thought he did a pretty good job his first year. If you look at the history of NASCAR, I don't know what it is but it seems like everyone has that sophomore jinx. For everybody. It's like you're a great driver the first year, and the second year you became stupid. I think that's what happened more than anything with Juan. It's just NASCAR. (Continued)