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I don't see what all the whoop d doo is all about surrounding Montoya coming to NASCAR. He's won 7 F1 races since 2001. Never won a championship in F1. I believe the field he typically competes against in F1 consists of less than 20 drivers. I don't think it's an earth shattering event.

Now, having a Michael Schumacher or someone of his ilk to come to NASCAR, now that would be hot stuff.

Montoya'll become NASCAR cannon fodder in 2007.

I'm pretty sure Montoya will be the only one on next year's Daytona 500 starting grid with an Indy 500 trophy on the mantle back home.

But, yeah, he'll struggle next year unless Ganassi makes some sort of breakthrough in engine technology.

I wouldn't be surprised if Montoya won a race, maybe two next year. Particularly on a road course. I don't think he'll be competing for the Cup, but I think he'll do better than a lot of NASCAR traditionalists will be comfortable with. Ganassi's got some limitations, but I have to imagine the volume of sponsorship money that's going to follow Monotoya ought to give them the cash to figure some of that out.

Jon, he's a huge deal because he's a former CART champ from when CART was one heck of a series, he's got an Indy 500 and if you think those 7 wins are something to scoff at, well I've got a bridge in New York to sell you.

In those 5 and a half seasons F1 has run between 15 and 19 races a year -- half a NASCAR series or less. And only four other drivers have won more races: Michael Schumacher, 42 wins, Fernando Alonso, 14, Kimi Raikkonen, 9, and Rubens Barichello, 8.

That Indy 500 win was in a car with a normally aspirated engine when CART, the series he raced fulltime that year, was using turbochargers. While they may have looked alike, they were very different cars.

So the fifth best driver from the world's top racing series is coming to NASCAR and bringing with him experience winning in several different kinds of cars. That's the way I see it, anyway.

Wait a second, Jonathan - Kasey Kahne is the fifth best driver in the world's top racing series, and he's already in NASCAR. ;)

Jonathan, the King of the Road Courses, Mr. California Cool Jeff G, will have something to say about that. Racing a family sized vehicle on a two lane wide road is a lot different than racing a car the size of a go cart on the boulevards of Monte Carlo.

Is there any previously full time open wheel driver that transitioned to the NASCAR scene and did moderately well, by that I mean won and consistently placed well? Can't think of any. Pablo's gonna be cannon fodder in 2007.

World's top racing series? What planet are you on? There's only one KING in the racing world and all of us know what series he raced in.

'nuff said.

"Is there any previously full time open wheel driver that transitioned to the NASCAR scene and did moderately well, by that I mean won and consistently placed well? Can't think of any."

How soon the reigning NEXTEL Cup Champion is forgotten!

Marc,

I had meant full time in the big leagues in either the IRL, Champ Car, or F1 type open wheels.

I failed to make that distinction.

Jon, how does that distinction affect your question.

Tony Stewart went from full-time in the IRL -- winning the championship in '97, finishing third in '98 -- to being NASCAR Rookie of the Year in 1999 with three Winston Cup wins. And you know what he's done since then.

I'll give you that there have a number of busts jumping from open-wheel to stocks -- Christian Fittapaldi, Scott Pruett, AJ IV, etc -- but most of the busts weren't exactly champions before switching. There have also been drivers that have won a few races -- guys like Robby Gordon and John Andretti -- who weren't great in open-wheel either but able to get a few wins. And you've had two open-wheelers come over and pick off the Daytona 500 for wins -- Mario Andretti and AJ Foyt.

Success ain't guaranteed, but it's not unheard of. And I think Montoya's got a heck of a better chance of succeeding than Christian Fittapaldi did.

Here's the latest silliness:

* Jeremy Mayfield to Mikey Waltrip's Toyota team. (nascar.com has a story)

* Elliott Sadler to Mayfield's seat at Evernham

* Mark Martin to Waltrip Toyota's team as well.

If this comes to pass, I'd say Toyota comes out OK, and Sadler-Evernham has promise. What then becomes of Yates?

To clarify: Martin didn't take the offer from Waltrip and is sticking with Roush.

I wonder how they're gonna fit all these new Toyota teams in for 2007.

I guess this means some of the weaker teams like Cope, Shelmerdine, etc. are gonna be out of luck. This will be good, 'cause either they didn't qualify or when they did, only ran a few laps before either they wrecked (somebody else) or something mechanical broke.

Toyota, maybe not in 2007, is gonna bring some new heat to NASCAR as well as boatloads of money to build winners.