Juan Pablo Montoya had a tumultuous time while driving in the NASCAR Cup Series. He picked up two wins in 255 races and 59 top-10 finishes. The Columbian race car driver was involved in several wrecks during his time in stock racing. But perhaps none was more bizarre than the events at the Daytona International Speedway in 2012. The Great American Race had already been postponed a day due to poor weather and Montoya’s crash forced the organizers to halt the race for over two hours.
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The incident occurred after a wreck on lap 157 forced NASCAR to get the caution flags waving. As the cars made their way around the long oval, a jet dryer was deployed to dry and blow debris off the track. At this point, Montoya brought his crew’s attention to a vibration in the car. He went into the pits but the mechanics did not find anything wrong with his machine. However, after he made his way out and was trying to catch up to the pack, the Columbian driver lost the rear of his car and crashed into the jet dryer on turn three of the tri-oval.
“They looked at everything and everything was ok and I still told them ‘I think there is something broke’ and I was coming back into the pits and the car just spun by itself. I’ve hit a lot of things—but a jet dryer?” he had said after the incident.
"I have this car in the race car graveyard."@DaleJr recalled Juan Pablo Montoya's incident with a jet dryer in the 2012 Daytona 500, and an epic footrace with @Keselowski that resulted. #WednesDale pic.twitter.com/lVdriMYFNV
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) June 6, 2018
The result of the impact was a substantial flame that engulfed the dryer while Montoya’s car slid down the race track and stopped. The driver got out safely but the #42 Chevrolet was heavily damaged and on fire. The crash also damaged the jet dryer, which subsequently started leaking fuel onto the track. One of the drivers drove over it the downward stream of fuel and the friction caused a flame to ignite. Before anyone knew it, there was a huge fire at the iconic Daytona International Speedway.
Emergency teams scrambled to put the fire out before it did too much damage to the track. However, the race was delayed by a whopping two hours and five minutes. The other drivers had nothing to do and had to make use of their time. Brad Keselowski whipped out his cell phone, took a picture of the whole thing from the car, and tweeted it immediately. He was also involved in a hilarious foot race with Dale Earnhardt Jr. to the Port-a-john.
Junior might have won that race but he came P2 in The Great American Race after it was restarted again. Montoya was classified P32 after his peculiar interaction with the track’s jet dryers. Overall, it was one of the most bizarre Daytona 500s in the history of the sport.
