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06/25/2007: "Short Sports Rant"
No, knucklehead - it's the rants that are short, not the sports ... 
- When Juan Pablo Montoya decided to leave Formula 1 for NASCAR, he turned a lot of heads - and most of them were left scratching them. After all, why would you leave the premier motorsports racing series for a bunch of hicks turning only left in rolling billboards? But Montoya had clearly had a belly-full of F1 management and what he himself has characterized as "bullshit rules". He'd successfully run for Chip Ganassi in CART - winning both a championship and the 2000 Indy 500 - so it made sense to partner up in this new and strange sport. The only question was how long the partnership would take to bear fruit ...
The answer is 15 races, as yesterday Montoya gave a clinic on how to drive a road course on his way to victory at Sonona. No race had ever been won by someone further back in the field than 13th qualifying position, a testament to how hard it can be to pass on such a course. But Montoya has been racing on road courses his entire career and, given the luxury of fenders, put them to good use. His brake late and stick your nose in philosophy brought him to the front, and a gutsy call on fuel - and Montoya's ability to conserve it - brought them the win. Now let's see him do it on the oval ...
- Did you know that the America's Cup Finals got underway over the weekend? Me neither - and I consider myself a Cup fan. American fans - and the media that serves them - get accused of being "homers", and this clearly show it's true. Hell, the cup is named "America", yet once it was being contested overseas regularly, you don't hear a peep about it here. Our loss.
The finals are a rematch of the last Cup, with the "good" New Zealanders of Emirates Team New Zealand racing the "bad" New Zealanders of the Swiss champions Alinghi. The good news is that for the first time since 1992, it won't be a sweep. Alinghi won the first race handily, but the Kiwis took advantage of an error by Alinghi skipper Brad Butterworth to hand him his first defeat in 16 Cup final races. It should make for an interesting series - if only the folks over here cared ...
- I'm not much of a basketball fan, but even I'm tired of hearing about Kobe Bryant versus Jerry Buss. OK, K - the owner lied to you. Get over it. I get lied to by my boss every day, but I don't demand a trade - and it's not just because I have no trade value, either. Not a chance in hell that they'll trade Bryant, but maybe they'll get him enough help to shut him up. A rumor that Lamar Odom and Andrew Bynum might be swapped for Kevin Garnett sounds particularly juicy ...
