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Light Is Shining On Crew Chief Pattie

The Associated Press

Before his hiring, Pattie, an 18-race winner in NASCAR's No. 2 series, had never worked on the next-generation Sprint Cup car.

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By TONY FABRIZIO

afabrizio@tampatrib.com

Published: February 10, 2009

Updated: 02/10/2009 11:33 pm

DAYTONA BEACH - Brian Pattie didn't want to chat inside the hauler, away from the garage noise.

A warm sun was beating down after a couple of cold days at Daytona, and the Zephyrhills native perched himself on a stack of tires.

There weren't many bright days last season for Pattie with driver Juan Pablo Montoya. Not until late in the year, when some encouraging runs by the No. 42 Dodge brought a ray or two of hope.

When the sun shines now, crew chief Pattie is going to soak up all he can.

There is optimism entering Sunday's Daytona 500, perhaps more than a team that finished 25th in points and had to change its fleet of Dodges to Chevys at the last minute should feel entitled to.

Then again, there is a guy who won the Monaco Grand Prix behind the wheel. A driver who blew away the Indy 500 field as a rookie and who has won regularly everywhere he has been except NASCAR.

They have to win, don't they?

"The way we were running at the end of last year, I wish it would have never ended," Pattie said. "We weren't getting the top-10 finishes, but we could run there, and that's what we need to do."

They were quite the pair at first - Pattie, who didn't really want the job, and Montoya, who was unhappy about getting his third crew chief in a month.

Team owner Chip Ganassi fired Jimmy Elledge in May for arguing with boss Steve Hmiel, and gave Pattie, his Nationwide Series crew chief, the job on an interim basis.

It didn't matter that Pattie, an 18-race winner in NASCAR's No. 2 series, had never worked on the next-generation Sprint Cup car. Or that Montoya didn't think Elledge should have been fired.

Pattie's first race was the all-star race, and Montoya qualified 47th out of 48. He finished 30th or worse in three of Pattie's first four points races.

"Getting thrown in on the Car of Tomorrow and with Juan being on his third crew chief in a month, yeah, it was a little bit of a roller coaster there for a while," Pattie says now. "But by midsummer, it really started to click and we started having fun."

Montoya and Pattie managed one top-five finish together, finishing fourth at Watkins Glen in August, but the world traveler from Colombia and the down-to-earth crew chief forged an unlikely friendship.

It is built on what they have in common: They are both 33 and married with children. They golf and fish.

"The funny thing about Brian is our tempers are very similar," Montoya said Tuesday after an afternoon of windsurfing. "We're both passionate. He's a little over-passionate about the deal sometimes, but he's competitive, and I'm very competitive."

Pattie vows to "push every rule to the limit" to make the 42 car faster. Montoya has bought into the relationship, saying he trusts Pattie "100 percent."

The newly merged Earnhardt Ganassi team will run Earnhardt-Childress engines, meaning Montoya and Pattie will get to bring a gun to a gunfight. Sunday's fourth-best qualifying effort backs up the optimism.

And yet, no one is picking Montoya for anything.

"That's good," Pattie said on the tire stack. "That's how I like it."

Reporter Tony Fabrizio can be reached

at (813) 259-7994.

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