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Brickyard Observations

Bob Margolis

Thoughts, observations and a few questions following Sunday's Allstate 400 at the Brickyard, won by Jimmie Johnson:

  • After having such bad luck at Indy before Sunday (Johnson had never led a lap there prior to his winning effort, and his average finish in his first four races there was 20th), crew chief Chad Knaus admitted that he was baffled that his No. 48 team had done so well.

    "We were just planning to get in and out of here with a top-10 finish," Knaus said.

    After proving, one more time, their knack for persevering on the race track despite tremendous adversity, can there be any doubt that Johnson, Knaus and Co. are the prohibitive favorites for the title?

  • I've said it before, but I'll say it again. NASCAR has achieved parity in Nextel Cup. A Hendrick Motorsports team winning a race that had been dominated first by Richard Childress Racing teams and then, to an extent, by Roush Racing teams proves as much.

    At one point, all five Roush cars were in the top 10.

  • Speaking of five, that was the number of minutes between commercial breaks on NBC. In an effort to pad its bottom line, NBC missed many of the big moments of the race as they happened, leaving the viewing audience stuck watching taped replays of most of the day's crucial on-track moves.

    Pathetic.

  • The hot topic in the garage before the race was tires. But tire issues never materialized – at least not to the extent expected. Yes, there were some tire failures, but when the race winner has a tire failure and still is able to recover and take his car to victory lane, you have to say that Goodyear delivered as promised.

    After all, didn't you expect a car with a Knaus setup to have a tire failure anyway? Even Knaus admitted after the race that they had planned for such an occurrence.

    In the postrace press conference, third-place finisher Kevin Harvick offered that Goodyear did a good job and delivered a tire that acted exactly as promised.

  • Funny moment: As NBC ran during the race a prerecorded segment with Kurt Busch – who happened to be discussing how much the track meant to his team owner Roger Penske – Busch was being passed on-track by Ken Schrader.

    Ken Schrader!

  • I remember how much was made at the time of the empty Turn 3 grandstands here during the Indy 500 in May.

    "It just shows you how much this race has slipped in popularity," said all those naysayers who love to put down the Indy 500 and try to make everyone believe that the NASCAR race is bigger.

    Those same grandstands were just as empty for Sunday's Allstate 400 at the Brickyard.

  • I'm still scratching my head over how Jeff Burton became a non-factor in the final laps, especially after he dominated the first half of the race. However, having Kevin Harvick and Clint Bowyer finish third and fourth, respectively, is a pretty good prize for Childress.

    Burton and Harvick will be tough to beat in the final 10, and Harvick could be the first driver to win both the Busch and Nextel Cup titles in the same season.

  • Denny Hamlin turned in another exceptional rookie performance despite having his fuel pump malfunction from lap 20 until the end of the race. Crew chief Mike Ford's call to take two tires during the final pit stop was a bold move, if only to get sponsor FedEx some additional time on the television broadcast by putting Hamlin near the front. Hamlin finished 10th, marking his ninth top-10 of the season.

  • OK, I know Johnson had a nearly two-second lead over the rest of the field during the final laps, but those only watching the television broadcast might have thought he was on the track all by himself during those laps.

    Because of the NBC television producer's lame attempt to build drama around those final laps – complete with Bill Weber's over-the-top recalling of the Hendrick plane crash – NBC completely missed showing live (again) the real drama taking place on the back straight and into Turn 3 when Kasey Kahne, Robby Gordon and Greg Biffle were wrecking.

  • The Hard Luck of the Race Award goes to … who else? Boris Said.

    "All I want from this place is to get out with a top-25," Said said before the race. Reed Sorenson, who took Said out on lap 19, obviously had other plans for the former road racer.

    A close runner-up for the same award goes to past Brickyard winner Bobby Labonte, whose Dodge engine fell 25 laps short of a full day's work.

  • Interesting statistic: Five of the last eight winners of this race have gone on to win the Nextel Cup title. Johnson is well on his way to making that six out of nine.

    Similar Busch Series stat: Seven of the last 10 winners of the race at O'Reilly Raceway Park (ORP) have gone on to win the series title that season. Harvick, who is dominating the Busch Series this year, also won Saturday night's event at ORP.

  • The By the Skin of His Teeth Award (a new one – I just made it up) goes to Dale Earnhardt Jr., who led a mere half lap and then managed to squeeze out a sixth-place finish and move back into the top 10 in points.

    Runner-up for the above award goes – in a tie – to both Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon. Stewart just plain struggled all afternoon after his pit crew had a malfunction with an air gun during a pit stop. Gordon, meanwhile, came back from being three laps down early in the race due to a broken tie rod and managed to finish the race exactly where he started (16th) – all the while showing the poise of a former champion.

    NASCAR's Holy Trinity of Gordon, Stewart and Earnhardt Jr. are now eighth, ninth and 10th in points, respectively.

  • MIA on Sunday: former race winner Bill (Red What?) Elliott (finished 22nd), Mike (I'm just happy to be here) Skinner (37th), Sterling (same goes for me) Marlin (31st), Ryan (hey, my car's got a bad push) Newman (13th), Jamie (can I keep some of the money?) McMurray (26th) and two-time race winner Dale (but I am driving the truck) Jarrett (28th).

    Note to Awesome Bill from Dawsonville – I know you're still having fun, but we're not. Please, please retire gracefully already. Do you need Ricky Rudd's cell phone number?

Postscript

Jimmie Johnson and the entire 48 crew have had a storybook-like season of extreme ups and equally extreme downs.

Granted, Chad Knaus might just be a misunderstood genius and Johnson a bit more "Stepford Driver" than many would like. Nevertheless, one can't deny that everything about this team screams out the opening lines to Queen's "We Are The Champions."

After falling short the past few seasons, this year could be different. Is Johnson the next Nextel Cup champion? It looks more and more like it every week.