CONCORD, N.C. -- Felix Sabates was sitting at a poker table on Wednesday night, trying to contribute some of his money to Make-A-Wish Foundation, when his cell phone rang.

He glanced down and saw that it was Juan Montoya calling.

"So I get up and take the call," said Sabates, minority owner of the Earnhardt Ganassi Racing organization that fields the car Montoya drives in the Sprint Cup Series. "And he says, 'I need your help.' I say, `What for?' And he says, 'I'm in jail.'

“

Listen, if he wins a couple of races and goes to Homestead with a chance of winning a championship, you're going to have 10,000 Latinos there -- because I'm going to pick up every one of them myself. I'll bring the buses.

”

-- FELIX SABATES

So I run outside and I'm like, 'What'd you do? What'd you do?' And he's like, 'I need $5,000.' I said, 'I can get you the money right now. What jail are you at?' And he started laughing and said, 'NASCAR jail.' It was for some charity. He pulled my ying-yang -- and when I see him, I going to choke him because I really believed him."

Despite the gag, which Montoya shrugged off with a smile when asked about it, Sabates and others have witnessed a new level of maturity to Montoya's racing these days. For that, he cited the first race in the Chase for the Sprint Cup at New Hampshire -- when Montoya backed out of a potential late-race incident with eventual winner Mark Martin when they were battling for the lead, but at least brought his No. 42 Chevrolet home safely in third place.

That was the first of four consecutive finishes of fourth or better in the first four Chase races for Montoya. So despite having yet to win a race this season, Montoya currently sits third in the points standings heading into this Saturday night's NASCAR Banking 500 at Lowe's Motor Speedway -- only 58 points behind leader Jimmie Johnson and a mere 46 behind Martin in second.

"Juan showed me a lot of restraint and that he's grown up the other day when he could have taken Mark Martin out -- because Mark came down on him, and no one would have blamed him. But he let off and let him go," Sabates said. "Mark won the race and we finished [third], but that shows you Montoya has really grown.

"Jeff Gordon wouldn't have done that. He would've wrecked him. Remember that."

Asked if Montoya would have taken Martin out in a similar situation two years ago, after Montoya had first made the transition from IndyCar and Formula One racing to stock cars, and Sabates released a hearty laugh.

"Hell, yeah, he would have done it two years ago. But it wasn't taking him out. Juan had a right to the track and [Martin] came down on him, so Juan had to let out of the gas," Sabates said.

"Two years ago, he would have stayed on the gas. Maybe because he didn't know any better then, either." (Continued)