Juan Pablo Montoya finally scored his first win of the season Sunday at the Glen!

photo credit: Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

Montoya just didn’t get the job done, he dominated the afternoon leading 74 of the race’s 90 laps.

“I think we did what we had to all day. We ran really smart,” Montoya said. “The last few weeks have been really frustrating for the whole team because we’ve been so close to victory. Seemed to keep slipping away. To come out here today and get the job done the way we did today, it was big. I feel more relieved than happy right now. It’s been a really hard road in a way. It’s been a lot of fun. It’s been frustrating. To finally get that first win for Brian (Pattie, crew chief), I think it’s good.”

The former open-wheel ace’s two cup victories have come on the only two road course tracks on the current schedule, but the 42 team has turned in some dominant performances that didn’t produce the results they were looking for -- most recently at Indianapolis and Pocono. It has been a 113 races since Montoya’s first cup win at Sonoma in June 2007.

“I think from day one we worked so hard to bring the performance of the cars to where they are now,” Montoya said. “It’s been frustrating because you could see the performance get better and better. Even last year in the Chase, finished second, finished third, finished second, finished third. That freaking win would never come, so it was getting frustrating.”

Kurt Busch passed Marcos Ambrose for second on the final lap.

“It gave something to me personally to run good on a road course,” Busch said. “To come up short just to Montoya, to beat Ambrose, racing with those two world class guys, it was fun, I learned quite a bit. There’s still some room to grow on road racing. Feels good to bring it home in second, Miller Lite and Dodge, we’re pulling the banner for Dodge this year. Any time we can have a close shot at victory, that’s what Roger Penske (team owner) always says, Put yourself in position to win, you’ll get those.”

We hear different names mentioned when it comes to road course tracks than we typically do.

After winning the Nationwide Series event at the Glen the day before, Marcos Ambrose led 3 times for 8 laps and continuously battled Montoya for the lead.

“It’s been a good weekend for me. I got to tell you, (it) doesn’t feel nice finishing third,” Ambrose said. “I want to win so bad in the Cup Series. This was a really good chance for me. We had a good racecar. Something went wrong in the last pit stop. We lost the handle on the racecar, maybe a different set of tires, slightly different spring rate in the tires. We lost the handle on it. I had nothing for Montoya there towards the end. Congratulations to him. He drove a heck of a race. Just a lot of fun racing a guy with that much talent. He was swinging around the corners, jumping curbs, locking tires. It was just a really good battle, something I’ll take away from this weekend as a memory I’ll never forget.”

A.J. Allmendinger finished fourth.

“Actually, it was pretty easy today,” Allmendinger joked during his post-race interview. “We didn’t have anything for the 42 (Montoya) or the 47 (Ambrose), but I’m still pretty happy with the day and really proud of the effort from the Richard Petty Motorsports guys. After getting everything done with the contract, I’m happy to kick things off with some good momentum with a result like this and hopefully we can just keep this going.”

Prior to making the move to NASCAR, Allmendinger was best known for racing in the Champ Car Series. Friday, Allmendinger announced he would continue to drive the #43 Ford in the Sprint Cup Series for Richard Petty Motorsports.

Carl Edwards won his first pole at Watkins Glen and his first since August 2008 at Bristol, but even after a front row starting position he was unable to lead a lap. Edwards, still, finished a solid 5th.

“My day was pretty good,” Edwards said. “I was really proud of my Aflac crew for putting us on the pole. That is the best lap I have ever run at a road course. We fought hard today and we are building momentum. I think everyone out there today was racing with cautious aggression, us included. We needed to get the points and need to be in the Chase. It was just a good solid day for the Aflac team.”

Jamie McMurray was sixth followed by Tony Stewart, Kyle Busch, Jeff Burton and Jeff Gordon completed the top-10.

For the (unofficial) race results, click here (nascar.com)

There were  5 caution flags for 13 laps and 10 lead changes among 5 drivers: Edwards 0, McMurray 1-5, Montoya 6-25, Ambrose 26-27, Montoya 28-40, Ambrose 41-45, Montoya 46-58, Ambrose 59, Newman 60, Martin 61-62, Montoya 63-90

Kevin Harvick leads the standings by 185 points over 2nd place, Jeff Gordon. Four races now remain in The Chase to the Race, the 10-race stretch leading into the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

Next:
Sunday, August 15th -- Carfax 400 at Michigan International Speedway