Out of last pit first, Johnson wins Brickyard debacle

INDIANAPOLIS -- Pure and simple, Jimmie Johnson won the Yellow Flag 400 on Sunday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway by winning the final race off pit road.

In a race dominated by tire-wear issues and punctuated -- for safety's sake -- by the staccato insertion of frequent competition cautions, Johnson held off Carl Edwards in a furious seven-lap run to the finish to win his second Allstate 400 at the Brickyard, by .333 seconds.

Denny Hamlin, who was leading when NASCAR threw the final competition caution on Lap 150, finished third, followed by Elliott Sadler and Jeff Gordon.

After a two-tire call by crew chief Chad Knaus, Johnson was first out of the pits, with Edwards second, for the final restart on Lap 154. Edwards thought his car was fast enough to catch and pass the No. 48 Chevrolet, but he was wrong (watch video).

"Chad called the race perfectly, and we had a great stop at the end," said Johnson, who won his second race of the season and the 35th of his career. "Carl put about as much pressure on us as he could. I knew from chasing Denny the run before that, even if he was a little faster, he couldn't get by us."

Johnson, the second driver in 15 races at the Brickyard to win from the pole, took the first step toward the victory when he claimed the top starting spot in Saturday morning's qualifying session. That gave him first choice of pit stalls, and the No. 48 team chose the box closest to the exit of pit road.

"If Jimmie hadn't won the pole and had been pitting down at the other end, things might have been different. I've just got to qualify better," said Edwards, who started ninth. "That pit stall helped Jimmie a lot. If I was in front, I might have won.

"All race long, I thought I was better than he was, but he was holding back a lot more than I thought he was."

The combination of the new racecar and the Brickyard's abrasive racing surface produced abnormally high wear on right-side tires. Accordingly, NASCAR called competition cautions at intervals of approximately 11 laps, but the yellows weren't frequent enough to prevent calamity from befalling several of the sport's top stars. Of the 11 cautions in Sunday's race, six were competition cautions.

"As much as I didn't like it," Johnson said, "I've got to commend NASCAR for calling a safe race."

The longest green-flag run Sunday was 13 laps.

"I've never seen anything like this," said fifth-place finisher Jeff Gordon. "I really hate that it happened here at the Brickyard -- it's such a big race. I think all of us are disappointed in what went on here [Sunday, but] it was a great shootout there at the end."

Brickyard to dust

A debacle like the one that happened Sunday shouldn't happen anywhere. But it absolutely cannot happen at Indy, writes David Caraviello.

• Complete story, click here

The start-and-stop nature of the event prevented drivers from establishing a rhythm.

"That was a long day," Edwards said. "Yeah, that was hard work. It was just really hard to get in a rhythm and race. No one ran 100 percent until the last run. ..."

Matt Kenseth perhaps was the most notable victim of tire trouble, blowing his right-rear tire on Lap 47 and destroying the right rear of his car in the process (watch video). After repairs, Kenseth returned to the race with his car heavily taped and finished 16 laps down in 38th position.

Kenseth faulted NASCAR for not holding an open test at the Brickyard. Goodyear conducted a tire test at Indy in April that featured three drivers: Dale Earnhardt Jr., Brian Vickers and Kurt Busch.

"It's a really, really, really disappointing situation," Kenseth said. "This is one of the two biggest races of the year, and to never have this tire here before and not come and do an open test and work on these things and work on the tires -- it's pretty darn disappointing.

"We had a great car [Sunday]. I feel bad for the fans. We're running three-quarters speed, because we're worried of the tires blowing out, and they get blown out every eight laps."

"We appreciate NASCAR and Goodyear working closely to manage the tire situation and to get the cars to the checkered flag," IMS president Joie Chitwood said. "Obviously, it's not the race you want to present to the largest crowd to watch a stock-car race this year, but we do appreciate the hard work of the drivers and the teams."

All that's left for Goodyear is to re-evaluate.

"Obviously, the tread wear didn't improve as we thought it would over the course of the afternoon," said Greg Stucker, director of race-tire sales for Goodyear. "We don't have the answer as to why that didn't happen, so we've got to go back and look at that and try to figure out how to make it better."

With tires wearing to the cords within five to 10 laps during Saturday's two practice sessions, Goodyear began rationing tires. The manufacturer was wary enough of the situation that tires intended for use next week at Pocono were trucked in as a contingency plan. That they didn't have to be used Sunday was about the only good news on the tire front.

"I really don't give a damn if they race 10 laps at a time. It's frustrating, but it's the same for everyone," Edwards said. "I'm sure we won't have that race again. I'm sure that will not happen again. That's the only thing I can say. I guarantee there will be some sort of better testing that comes from this."

Notes: Points leader Kyle Busch finished 15th but lost little ground to second-place Dale Earnhardt Jr., who lost a lap early in the race but recovered to finish 12th. Busch leads Earnhardt by 253 points. ... Mark Martin fell short of his prediction in early June at Pocono that he would win at the Brickyard. Early tire problems and misjudging the timing of the competition cautions cost Martin track position, and after that, he was never in the mix for the victory. He finished 11th. ... One driver who took advantage of the frequent cautions was A.J. Allmendinger, who managed to stay near the front of the field with a succession of two-tire pit stops. Allmendinger finished a career-best 10th and improved the position of his No. 83 Red Bull Toyota to 37th in the owner standings, 63 points behind the 35th-place No. 66 Haas CNC Racing Chevrolet.