When it comes to sports, Colombians are quite patriotic (except for football, of course… the current "trend" is golf (!) because of Camilo Villegas). In 1999, only a bunch of "rich, snob people" followed the main categories of car racing (F1, Cart, Nascar), until Juan Pablo Montoya joined the Chip Ganassi Racing team and, as a rookie, won his first CART championship. Everyone switched from soccer or cycling to the emotions of car racing. After winning the Indy 500 in 2000 with his aggressive and controversial style of driving, he went to F1 in 2001. Chao, CART, hola Fórmula Uno. Before Montoya, though, Colombia had another two F1 pilots: Ricardo Londoño, who tried to qualify to a GP in 1981, and Roberto José Guerrero, who after two seasons moved to race in the US, with initial but fugacious success.

Thanks to Montoya, Colombians learned quite fast such terms as pit(s) or pole position, how was the qualifying system and another stuff previously "reserved" for those who liked car racing because they could afford a competition vehicle. We enjoyed his 7 wins out of 95 races, his confrontations with such pilots as Michael Schumacher (the best in all F1 history and who is praised and/or hated in Colombia) and all the Sunday morning ritual every two weeks watching the top on car racing.

But NASCAR is not the same. We don’t even know if national TV networks will broadcast it, and it seems his sophisticated wife won’t change their beautiful house in Monaco for some trailer in the US so easily. Maybe "he’s not worried about switching from locales like Monaco to less exotic locations like Talladega. He even joyfully talked about eating a hot dog in Chicago", but what about Connie? SPEED channel got the rights for cable television in Latin America, so Colombian cable operators will include it in their programming grids, I guess.

And what about us? Maybe Montoya was not doing well, but F1 has improved lately in emotion, specially with the recent Alonso-Schumacher confrontation. Shanghai GP was awesome, Suzuka too and I’ll be there watching Interlagos, the last of the season and Schumacher’s farewell, on 22 September. And, come on, the F1 is the top of the tops of autoracing, don’t try to fool us, don’t even try to compare it with the "redneckie" series.

As long as Fox Sports Latin America carries the rights, I’ll try to watch F1 once in a while. I’ll cheer up for Alonso, until another great pilot from a Spanish-speaking country shows up. Best wishes for Montoya in NASCAR. Even if I don’t want to, I’ll know what will happen with him. But it’s not the same.

Related posts:

• Montoya leaves F1 (11 July 2006)
  

In a troubled and "failed" country as Colombia, any sports or entertainment victory outside our borders gives a lot of distraction and happiness.

In 1999, Colombians became fans of car racing, a sport for wealthy people, because of Juan Pablo Montoya, who won the CART season being a rookie. The victory was watched live on national television. Two years later, we become fans of Formula 1, so we had to stay awake overnight at the beginning, get up early in the European summer and have lunch when Canadian, US and Brazil GP were held. Cable channels PSN (Panamerican Sports Network, now defunct) and later Fox Sports earned a lot of rating in Colombia, since broadcast television didn’t show the races live (they were broadcasted a few hours later).

Despite Montoya’s temper, a lot of people in Colombia, even those who didn’t like him as a person, celebrated when he won a GP, something that happened 7 times. Some of us simply loved the confrontation between and Michael Schumacher, specially because JP, unlike the other pilots, didn’t "respect" him at all. Unfortunately, the bad results in McLaren has made interest on F1 to drop so much that the network which has the rights to broadcast F1 racings didn’t show this year’s Monaco and British GP, and moved Canada and US GP to a late night slot.

The announcement of Montoya to race NASCAR next year was a shock for a lot of people, even though Juan Pablo had decided it some time ago. He even told F1 was quite boring:

How hard is it to pass a car in Formula One? You pass ‘em and you touch wheels and you’re an animal. I don’t think you’re going to be happy getting more money and being miserable all day.

But even more shocking was the McLaren decision to release Juan Pablo, preventing him to run the rest of the 2006 F1 season. What a shame, but it seems they agreed to. And everyone is happy: Montoya, Chip Ganassi, Danica Patrick (such a doll!). But what about us? Sunday afternoons will be again for racing, this time the NASCAR racing. Most Colombian Montoya fans will leave F1, because it’s not the same without Juan Pablo there. No matter if you’d like to cheer Alonso, De la Rosa, even Schumacher. You may choose to watch the news instead of getting up early on Sunday. Anyway, hope Montoya finally does well.

In other stuff: What did Materazzi tell Zidane? 

Everything France needed today was a penalty kick. Nice goal, because it was the only way France could win. It’s true, they looked quite organized in the second half (nice catenaccio, by the way), so the prize was their victory, but, if we see the overall performance, France shouldn’t be on the final.

On the other hand, Portugal lacked of ambition, organization and collective play. What a disappointment. It was not a team, actually. And those guys, Cristiano Ronaldo and Postiga, throwing themselves to the grass, pretending fouls… Come on!

Although the worst was Barthez, actually. What a mediocre goalkeeper! He was so lucky Figo headed the rebound so badly… maybe next time you won’t, Fabien.

The decency of football is lost. The final it should be, Germany v. Portugal, will be the match for the third place instead. The cheaters of yesterday or the cheaters of 8 years ago will be 2006 World Champions. It stinks. Don’t know what team I hate most. Let’s say good-bye to the farce. Our hope is at 4 years from now, in South Africa.