Zanardi's gone. The Unser/Andretti era is over. Juan Montoya is now the best driver in CART, period.

I ain't getting all subjective and star-struck with you. I'm not basing my claim on intangibles like Montoya's heroic car control, his laser-like concentration, or his ability to learn a new track on Friday and take the pole on Saturday. I'm basing my claim on the numbers:

In the first nine races of his CART career, 23 year old Juan Montoya has four victories, the only driver with multiple wins this season. Montoya has four pole positions, the only driver with multiple poles. One of four drivers to have finished every race this season, Montoya is second in laps completed with 1412 of a maximum 1418.

There's more. Montoya has led 564 laps this season, nearly 40% of the total. The next driver on the list is Adrian Fernandez, a distant second with only 155 laps led. Montoya has led 14 times this year: a group of drivers are tied for second having led only 6 times. And of course the statistic that matters most, championship points, finds Montoya with 112, a healthy 25-point lead over second place Gil de Ferran.

The achievements of Montoya's first nine career CART starts blow away the first nine races of his predecessor Alex Zanardi. The 1997 and 1998 champion won his first career CART race in his ninth start at Portland in 1996. After nine races, Zanardi had one victory, one pole position, three top-five finishes, and a surprising four DNF's.

Zanardi was a racer. The indelible image of Zanardi's rookie year took place on the last lap of the season, an insane off-course excursion in the Corkscrew at Laguna Seca to pass leader Bryan Herta for the victory. Zanardi thrilled us with his ability to carve through the field and intimidate his fellow drivers. Zanardi was the predator, the red demon filling your mirrors and haunting your dreams.

Montoya is far more businesslike. To him, it's simple. You qualify in the top five. Obtain the lead as soon as possible. Then hit warp speed and drive away from the field. Montoya's not about last lap heroics. He's about domination. He's simply able to drive his Honda-Reynard-Firestone faster than anyone else. The yellow flag comes out, the field bunches up, Montoya pits with the rest of the leaders, and yet somehow he finishes the next race segment with a ten second lead. Superior car control, determination, and concentration mean Montoya is simply faster than your favorite driver, over and over again, every lap of the race.

OK mister devil's advocate, of course we must keep in mind that Montoya came into the series with all the advantages of the triple-championship Target Ganassi team. Montoya's Honda-Reynard-Firestone equipment package is still the premier combination, and his race engineer Mo Nunn is absolutely the best in the business. Montoya also inherited Zanardi's "boys," one of the finest crews on pit lane. At last week's crazy wet-weather race in Cleveland, Montoya spend 112.6 seconds in the pits, the lowest aggregate pit time of any driver.

Yet Montoya is still a rookie, with all the disadvantages of being new to the series. Montoya had no seat time in a CART racecar prior to preseason testing this year, and never raced in Indy Lights. He has never seen many of the tracks on the CART schedule, yet he is winning poles and races at those unfamiliar tracks. Montoya has never raced in a series with regular pit stops, yellow flags, and restarts, but has become a leader's most feared competitor when yellow turns to green. Multiple race-winners Jimmy Vasser, Paul Tracy and Dario Franchitti know the CART tracks inside and out, are backed by well financed, highly organized teams, and run the same Honda-Reynard-Firestone package. But Montoya is faster. Consistently faster. Time and time again, Montoya gets the lead, puts the hammer down, and in the words of his fellow drivers, is "gone."

It's too early to figure out just what Montoya's success means for CART. The ability of a young Formula One test driver to obliterate CART's roster of experienced winners raises a number of questions. Is the degree of difficulty in Formula One so great that almost any driver could come over to CART and do well? Can CART's finest elevate their performance to compete with Montoya? Is CART in danger of becoming a feeder series for drivers who have their sights set on Formula One? Is open wheel racing become more like other sports, where athletes in their 30's begin to lose an edge as their physical gifts start to wane? Is Montoya the next Michael Schumacher, or simply a youngster on a hot streak? Only time will tell.