Sprint Cup driver Juan Pablo Montoya works with students at the New York Wine & Culinary Center in Canandaigua on Thursday afternoon. / ANDREW LEGARE / STAFF PHOTO

CANANDAIGUA -- Former NASCAR driver Sterling Marlin once famously said road courses are for the wine-and-cheese crowd, an obvious dig at Watkins Glen International, which is a far cry geographically and geometrically from the sport's traditional oval-course roots in the South.

After adding to an already impressive road course resume with last year's NASCAR Sprint Cup Series victory in the Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips at The Glen, Juan Pablo Montoya cemented his status as a "wine-and-cheese" type of guy Thursday afternoon when he rolled up his sleeves and played the role of assistant to a group of 18 students in the Junior Chef Camp at the New York Wine & Culinary Center.

Montoya's presence also served as a promotional visit for the Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips at The Glen, which will be held the weekend of Aug. 11-14 at Watkins Glen International. In addition, his appearance provided an alcohol-free hint of what's to come this weekend when the racetrack hosts the annual Finger Lakes Wine Festival. Chefs from the center will run several culinary classes at the festival, which begins Friday and continues through Sunday.

Montoya, who first made his mark as an open-wheel racer in CART and Formula One, came away impressed with the youngsters.

"I was really amazed to see those kids properly cooking," said Montoya, a native of Bogota, Colombia. "When they told me kids were going to be cooking, I said, 'Oh yeah, they're going to do brownies or something.' Then you see all these 8-year-old, 7-year-old kids with knives in their hands. And you go, 'Wow.' They really know how to handle themselves."

WGI President Michael Printup, who has some culinary training of his own, also participated as the kids made a variety of complex dishes better suited to a restaurant than a home.

"That was a lot of fun" Printup said. "We thought they were going to be a little older. Actually, this was even better that they were younger because their talent level is phenomenal. You could tell (Juan) has a little culinary in him; I've got a little culinary in me. ... It was pretty cool. They were really having a lot of fun in there."

Not quite the same type of fun Montoya had last August at Watkins Glen, when he picked up his second career Sprint Cup victory by holding off Kurt Busch by 4.736 seconds in the 90-lap race.

Montoya, who said Thursday he is on the verge of signing a contract extension with Earnhardt Ganassi Racing, is 13th in points heading into Sunday's race at Loudon, N.H. There are eight races remaining before the drivers who will compete for the season points title over the final 10 races are determined. The top 10 drivers in points, along with two drivers in positions 11 to 20 who have the most wins, qualify for the Chase for the Sprint Cup.

Montoya, 35, has a chance to improve his chances of getting in the Chase with a solid finish at The Glen.

"For me, it was just a really good weekend all the way around," he said of last year's Glen experience. "We had a good car, we ran smart all day. We did what we had to do.

"This year, the way the race is going to be, you never know. Things might go your way, they might not. The way I always look at it is that's a great opportunity to score big points and you've got to take advantage of it."

Written by Andrew Legare

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