SPORTS ARTICLE

By Sean Patrick

I wrote this story for the other website and am waiting for them to publish it. Either way, I figured I would share it with you all. My brother came up with the idea for the article. 

Montoya Gets Green Card Printed On His Car Before Race In Arizona

Colombian Nascar driver Juan Pablo Montoya was forced to place a large replica of his green card on his Target Chevrolet Impala before Sunday’s Nascar competition at Phoenix International Speedway. The Bogota native was obligated to take this drastic measure because of the strict immigration reform that was recently enforced in the state of Arizona. 

The problem became apparent the day before, when Phoenix police officers pulled Montoya over five times during his two qualifying laps to check for proof of citizenship. This resulted in Pablo earning the final spot in Sunday’s lineup, and influenced the decision to print out a large replica of the driver’s green card and put it on his hood. 

Although the green card prevented him from being pulled over during Sunday’s race, he was unable to break into the top thirty because two of his crew members (also Colombian) were placed in a holding cell just hours before the green flag was waived. The problem? They showed up to the track in a minivan. Phoenix’s police chief explained.

“We have been given the right to pull over and detain anyone that appears suspicious. Nothing is more suspicious than two Colombian’s in a minivan. Not just because of their race, but also because of their vehicle. You don’t see minivans at Nascar events. There’s trucks, tractors, trailers… any automobile you can think of that starts with a ‘t.’ So when a minivan pulled up with questionable looking gentlemen inside, we had to act first and ask questions later. It turned out they were legal, but we have a couple of our finest officers still following them just in case.”

Phoenix detectives also secretly listened in on the conversation going on between Juan Pablo and his crew chief Brian Pette during the race to see if they were discussing anything suspicious. They almost took action after hearing the two occasionally use the Spanish phrase “ay ay ay.” 

“This reform prohibits bilingual speech. If we can’t understand you, we can’t guarantee that you’re supposed to be here. We almost took action there, but we decided to wait and see if any other red flags showed up.”

The “red flags” that he’s referring to are objects that the new law also prohibits in the state of Arizona. This includes items such as sombreros, chiuauas, and Menudo cassette tapes, none of which Montoya had in his car when it was repeatedly searched the day before.