The rear of Montoya’s car came loose and he hit the wall in Turn 2.
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Montoya said that the car just came around on him.
He was checked at the track medical center, cleared and released.
“Yeah, I am okay,” he said. “People do a lot of dumb things on a restart and we were just being careful, trying to make up some ground. The car was really good and it felt okay. I went into [Turn] 2 and got a big push and I got out of the gas and it just came around.”
Montoya, who has two wins in the famed race, managed to put a philosophical slant on his crash.
“It’s okay,” he said after the incident. “There is good and bad.”
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Montoya raced full time in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series from 2007-2013, winning two races. He moved back to open-wheel racing in 2014 — he had previously raced in both CART and Formula One — and finished second in the IndyCar Series standings last year. He won the Indy 500 last year for Roger Penske and in 2000 for Chip Ganassi.
