The elite teams of NASCAR’s three national touring series spent the weekend in the state of Indiana. By Sunday night we witnessed a 33 year old driver, and three time Sprint Cup champion, win his third race at Indy. We also watched the young driver hold off the last lap advances of a 50 year old icon. We shook our heads at the sight of a sure fire race winner get nailed by a speeding ticket. We also watched another 50 year old icon set up a new record in the truck series and we watched a fan favorite back flip his way to victory lane again. With those thoughts in mind let’s begin with:
HOORAH to driver Jimmie Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus. NASCAR’s dynamic duo used patience, good pit work and some great driving by Johnson to pull off their third win of 2009, the 43d career win and their third win in the Allstate 400 at the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Coming off a double file restart, following the final caution flag of the race, Johnson lined up on the outside of race leader Mark Martin and used a side draft maneuver to take the lead for good. Martin did all he could to get around the new race leader during the final laps and that forced Johnson to take evasive defense tactics to keep his race rival and team mate behind him.
That moment in this race leads to a WAZZUP with Martin, and crew chief Alan Gustafson, regarding their restart decision coming off of the final yellow flag? Their decision to pick the inside lane for the double file restart led to Johnson’s winning edge.
But Martin also deserves a HOORAH for setting the fast time during Saturday’s qualifying session. After turning in a lap of 49.436 seconds, the 50 year old icon came over the radio and said “I wanted to run a 49 flat but I’m just too old.”
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Now let’s get to it: the biggest WAZZUP of the weekend. What in the world was Juan Pablo Montoya thinking when he got nailed for speeding down pit road? Montoya, and his Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing Chevrolet, completely dominated the Allstate 400 to the point of virtually turning the race into a snooze festival. With approximately 26 laps left in the race he came down pit road, for his final pit stop, with a five second plus lead. He exited the pit stop with an official notice from NASCAR that said he was speeding on pit road and would have to return for a drive through penalty.
The Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s pit road was placed at 55 MPH. NASCAR observes a policy of a five MPH cushion with pit road speed being determined by eight computerized scoring loops. Montoya was clocked at 60.06 and 60.11 MPH while driving through two different segments of pit road.
Denying that he was speeding on pit road, a livid Montoya came over the in car radio and said “thank you NASCAR for screwing up my day. We had this one in the bag and they screwed us. I was not speeding.” Montoya insisted that the green lights, on his pre set tachometer, were on indicating that he had not exceeded the pit road speed. He even went so far to say that “I swear on my children that I was not speeding.”
But NASCAR computerized loops are highly accurate and a brilliant moment in time was lost. Montoya led 116 of the 160 laps in the race and was completely untouchable. A sure fire win became an 11th place finish. One can only wonder what the motivation was to get him to push the envelope on pit road the way he did. WAZZUP indeed.
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HOORAH to Dale Earnhardt Jr.
A brief pause here why all of you yell “wait a minute, he blew an engine and finished 36th in the Allstate 400.”
You’re right, that’s exactly what happened. But perhaps we need to accent the positive here. The Hendrick Motorsports #88 team arrived at Indy with a brand new race car. It was the first car constructed directly under the supervision of recently installed crew chief Lance McGrew.
Earnhardt set the third fastest time in qualifying. All during the race he was always in the top ten. He got as high as second at one point in the race and never got any lower than ninth before the engine failed. Also bear in mind that blown engines within Hendrick Motorsports are a very rare commodity these days.
Also bear in mind that Earnhardt put in this driving performance while suffering the extreme effects of a stomach virus all weekend long. Out of concern, the team had driver Brad Keselowski suit up Sunday afternoon anticipating that Earnhardt might be too sick to finish the race.
This same new car will be used next weekend at Pocono. This might be something to keep an eye on.
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WAZZUP with Joe Gibbs Racing-JGR and all of those problems at the Indy race? It started with Denny Hamlin who rolled down pit road with his shifter swinging loose in his right hand due to a broken drive shaft. He returned to the race 16 laps later but had to settle for a 34th place finish.
Then there was the matter of Kyle Busch whose Sprint Cup championship hopes took another hit on lap 57 when a blown tire sent him into the wall. He returned to the fray 48 laps later and finished 38th.
Kyle Busch has been a formidable presence while participating in NASCAR’s Camping World Truck Series and Nationwide Series. He started strong at the beginning of the Sprint Cup campaign. However, there has been some horrible luck as of late with the Cup effort and the team has failed to score a top five finish in the last ten events.
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