In spite of setbacks, Juan Pablo Montoya says he saw improvement in 2010

After a breakout year in 2009 that saw him qualify for the Chase For The Sprint Cup and finish eighth in the standings, one might think Juan Pablo Montoya would look back on 2010 as the year he'd just as soon forget. Pegged in the preseason as a likely Chase contender, Montoya instead suffered an astounding eight DNFs, finished 17th in the points and was left on the outside when the Chase field was set.

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Juan Pablo Montoya Wins Talladega Pole

Juan Pablo Montoya has captured the pole position for Sunday's AMP Energy Juice 500 at Talladega Superspeedway with a lap of 184.640 miles per hour.

It was Montoya's third pole of the year. He also won the top starting spots at New Hampshire and Indianapolis in July.

"We always run really good here," Montoya said afterwards. "We always have good race cars. Right now, (we'll) get ourselves a good pit stall for the race and then see what happens. We'll be ok. Talladega is more about how the car is going to be in the draft and everything. We came with the same thing we had here in the spring, we ran really well. Both (Earnhardt Ganassi) cars ran really well."

Clint Bowyer won the second starting spot with a lap of 184.498 mph. Kurt Busch was third, followed by the unlikely Joe Nemechek and Jeff Gordon.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. qualified sixth, followed by some other lesser-ranked drivers, including Dave Blaney in seventh, Ryan Newman, Casey Mears and Sam Hornish Jr.

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