NASCAR FEATURE (DAYTONA) - Mutter Butter

The muttering began in July 2006, when Chip Ganassi Racing announced that Formula One star Juan Pablo Montoya would occupy the driver's seat of the No. 42 Dodge for the 2007 NEXTEL Cup Series racing season.

NASCAR had welcomed drivers from various open-wheel series before, but not in full-time roles. Their appearances were more akin to Academy Award-winning actors dropping in for brief appearances in films with other stars in the most major roles.

Commonly known as "cameos,” these outings can sometimes be startling in their success. Dame Judi Dench took home an Oscar in 1998 for what basically amounted to an eight-minute role in Shakespeare In Love. Jimmy Buffett’s 20-second vocal contribution helped send the song “It’s Five O’clock Somewhere” to the top of the charts. Formula One legend Mario Andretti moseyed down to Florida for a little wintertime contest in 1967 and returned home with the Daytona 500 winner's trophy.

The nation’s mutterers reared their heads back then and peered around a little bit; after all, wasn't there something slightly wrong about having an Andretti in Daytona's hallowed Victory Lane rather than a Petty or an Allison?

But Andretti didn't stick around. He accomplished what he had set out to do and went on back to open-wheel competition or, as some referred to it, "his kind of racing."

Never mind that Andretti's "kind of racing" involved developing the fastest equipment possible and then rocketing it past all other competitors on the race track, intent on being the first to take the checkered flag. That was one of those pesky little details that are best overlooked.

Content for the moment that all was well, the mutterers crawled back into their caves of complacency and snoozed pretty peacefully until another fiery Indianapolis 500 champion came along and poked them with a stick.

Montoya made it clear from the outset that he had not shown up to run a few road races and then be on his merry way. Like the kid in the old Stove Top stuffing commercial, Montoya’s entire persona loudly and proudly proclaimed, "I'm staying."

The muttering contingent’s low and persistent grumbling resumed. Nothing too drastic, though, and it was generally peppered with caveats and disclaimers.

"He'll never finish a race at Talladega," said some. "He'll be eaten alive at Bristol," intoned others. "He will never win a Cup race," seemed for a time to be the official mantra of the muttering majority.

In his first season of full-time NEXTEL Cup Series competition, Montoya has already posted one victory. He finished 17th and 15th at Bristol and Talladega, respectively, in the most recent events at those tracks, and currently sits 21st in points. He has earned over $4 million in winnings so far this season.

Encouraged perhaps by Montoya’s success, or maybe just looking for different dragons to battle, other open-wheel drivers are steadily packing up their gear and moving to new teams, all of which seem to be located in the NEXTEL Cup Series. They include guys like Jacques Villeneuve, Patrick Carpentier, and Dario Franchitti.

Faced with this increasingly long list of unfamiliar names, the mutterers are awake once more. This time around, they are surveying the new kids on the block and, in at least some of the many conversations I’ve had and heard on the subject, are dismissing them as nothing more than “lucky foreigners who don’t deserve to go Cup racing.”

This is still America, right? The democratic land of opportunity and all that? Just checking.

Besides, success and acceptance tend to be good traveling buddies. Just ask Duke basketball or Boston Red Sox fans. They don’t even blink at names like Krzyzewski or Daisuke Matsuzaka. They’re just a couple more members of the family, albeit particularly popular ones during sporting events.

Family trees can't grow sky-high without plenty of support from the roots underneath. Every one of us originated somewhere else. We are literally propped up by foreigners. We call them family.

My ancestors came here from Ireland.

Busch sounds like it could be German, or maybe Scandinavian.

Mary, Queen of Scots, was a Stewart. She became queen six days after being born and was officially crowned at the age of nine months. Talk about a blazingly successful rookie season for a Stewart! Coincidence? Maybe; maybe not.

Is it just me, or might "Labonte" sound vaguely French?

I'm not completely sold on the "earning your right to ride" theory, either. If someone comes to me and offers me a multi-million-dollar contract to write a novel even though my writing experience has been mostly confined to newspaper and magazine stories, am I likely to say, "No, thanks. Please give your millions to that struggling author over there. She deserves it more than I do"?

Not likely. I'm taking the deal. If I don't, how will I ever know whether I could in fact compete with the Grishams and Evanoviches of the world? How else can I judge my capabilities, or test my own mettle?

I have no intention of turning this into yet another tear-jerking, flag-waving "melting pot" treatise, but come on. Let's dispense with the muttering and really talk -- and think -- about this issue.

You can't just throw a handful of chicken and rice into a pot and call it gumbo. It needs spicy sausage, zesty peppers and even some slimy okra to make it an interesting dish. Without those ingredients, it's just another boring bowl of chicken soup. Tasty and reliable, but unimaginative.

These new drivers are CART, Formula One and IRL champions. Three of them are Indianapolis 500 winners. They are seasoned, polished professionals. You can't fault them for taking active measures to learn how good they really are. Our beloved NASCAR heroes will most definitely teach them a thing or two, but chances are they will learn something in the process, as well.

I expect the 2008 racing season to be a particularly interesting one. At the end of the day, only one driver can visit Victory Lane, but when Daytona 500 and Indy 500 champions go head-to-head, everybody wins.