Notebook: Better him than me, says Montana

            For the first time ever, both front-row starters in a Sprint Cup race are from the team predominantly owned by Chip Ganassi.

            The present incarnation of Ganassi’s team is known as Earnhardt Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates, and Teresa Earnhardt and Sabates also have stakes in the team that sent Daytona 500 winner Jamie McMurray (183.744 mph) and Juan Pablo Montoya (183.477) to front-row spots in the Auto Club 500 at, oddly enough, Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif.

            Montoya told the media in California that McMurray’s victory had a carry-over effect.

“It’s good for the whole team,” he said. “I think that victory … the whole team has been working really hard for it. Jamie got a huge win in the 500 for the ‘1’ car … it was more necessary. If you said a team that had to win, either the ‘1’

car or the ‘42’ car (his), I think it was more important.

“Of course, I want to win, but as the sponsors and everything, I think it was better that the ‘1’ car won.”

            Watch what you ask for – McMurrray, meanwhile, talked about the hectic week he had in the aftermath of winning NASCAR’s most prestigious race.

“I’m still blown away by how much attention is placed on the Daytona 500,” he said. “It's a dream to win that race, but the amount of media attention that goes along with the Daytona 500, you really can't explain it to anybody.

“I don't believe that anyone would believe everything that you've gone through and that you've gotten to do. You get in the car, they drive you to whatever appearance you're doing, and you think you're going to rest, and they put a cell phone in your ear, and they say ‘this is a newspaper’ or ‘this is a radio station’ or ‘this is somebody that you don't know.’ And you talk all the way there, and then you get out, and you do your appearance and you get back in the car, and you get ready to take a break, and they put the cell phone in your ear again. No joke: Everybody's cell phone in the car was dead at the end of each day.”

            Catch-up already – Kasey Kahne flexed his Ford’s muscles with a qualifying-race victory at Daytona but was one of many victims of melees near the end of the 500, which hasn’t been good to him. A year ago he left Daytona 29^th in points; this year he’s 30^th.

            And only 35 races to go …

“I was disappointed with last week, and it took me a couple of days to recover, just because it’s the Daytona 500,” he said. You get so excited because we had such a good Bud Shootout (third) and 150 (Gatorade Duel) that I had a lot of high hopes, and that kind of got blasted with a couple of laps to go.”

            And the favorite is? -- According to Denny Hamlin, it’s still Jimmie Johnson.

“A very versatile race car is needed for California,” said the Toyota driver. “A lot of races at California, you’re chasing Jimmie (Johnson). He’s three lanes up on the race track -- I know which line he runs -- but it’s just so hard to match that because they’ve got a magic setup. If we could figure it out, it would definitely help us because this is a Chase race track and we know this is a race that he’s going to perform well at when it comes Chase time.

“It’s our job to try a lot of different things this spring race (actually, of course, a winter race) to help us set up for a good fall race. California is a track where all of it comes together. You have to have the big motor, the horsepower, the aero(dynamics) and all that because this track is so big. Every little advantage you get shows up big-time on this type of track.”

Take that, Twitter! – Tony Stewart vowed not to join the growing ranks of NASCAR figures avidly taking part in social networking.

“I have no idea, because I don’t do anything with that stuff,” he said. “I actually have enough productive stuff to do with my life other than sit there and tell everybody what I’m doing every minute of every day. I really don’t mess with it. I’ve heard about it, I’ve heard a lot about it, but don’t know anything about it.”

You may contact Monte Dutton at mdutton@gastongazette.com.