A run-in with #12-Juan Pablo Montoya early in the Brickyard 400 on Sunday may have cost #27-Paul Menard a place in the NASCAR championship shootout. It also left his team livid. ‘It’s stupid,’ crew chief Slugger Labbe said as the team loaded Menard’s crinkled and scraped Chevrolet onto its transporter at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. ‘People have no respect’¦. I just don’t get Juan Pablo, what he’s doing. It doesn’t make sense. You’d think the guy would come over and apologize or something.’ Menard slapped the third-turn wall after he was hit by Montoya on the 32nd lap. He lost two laps for repairs and finished 34th. ‘We’re running for a spot in the Chase, and some part-time racer left-rears us and puts us in the fence,’ Labbe said. ‘Then you’re done.’ Menard was not available for comment. Montoya was making just his second Sprint Cup start of the season. He returned to IndyCar this season after seven years in NASCAR. ‘Obviously that’s why he’s not in our sport anymore,’ Labbe said. ‘He’s never used his head, he’s always wrecked people and he got us. It probably knocked us out of the Chase (for the Sprint Cup), but’¦we’ve just got to fight back in six more races.’ Menard’s finish dropped him four spots in the standings to 16th.(Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
