In Indy aftermath, a little contrition goes a long way

• Video teleconference: Pemberton: "This won't happen again"

The fallout from Sunday's Allstate 400 at the Brickyard has begun settling in earnest, and it's landing on rooftops from Indianapolis to Akron to Daytona Beach. Tuesday, officials from NASCAR and Goodyear held a conference call to review exactly how such a prominent event turned into an unmitigated disaster. Indianapolis Motor Speedway CEO Tony George told his city's newspaper that that the problem was NASCAR's alone, and that no changes would be made to the racetrack. Goodyear posted an extensive statement on its racing Web site, detailing yet again how all indications led them to believe that tire wear would improve as the surface rubbered in -- two things that never happened.

And fans remained as angry as a disturbed rattlesnake, especially those who attended the event and left coated in tire dust. This reporter's inbox was pummeled with more than 600 irate missives, some demanding that spectators have their money refunded (as happened after the 2005 Formula One tire debacle at Indy) or that the Sprint Cup tour be demoted from the big track to O'Reilly Raceway Park. But most just seethed over what they perceived as arrogance from NASCAR and Goodyear officials, who came across as unapologetic and defiant in the aftermath of the event. The only people directly apologizing were the drivers, who were the least at fault.

Well, that changed Tuesday. Somebody at NASCAR finally realized that a little contrition goes a long way. And Robin Pemberton was the man chosen to deliver it.

"I can't say enough how sorry we are," Pemberton, the circuit's vice president for competition, said in a conference call with reporters. "It's our responsibility being NASCAR that we don't go through this situation again. We've already gotten after it and we're moving forward with a plan to get ahead of the situation so we don't go through this again. Once again, I think it deserves to be said that the race didn't come off like we had hoped, the fans didn't get what exactly they wanted. We'll do everything in our power so it won't happen again, I can tell you that much."

Granted, there's a little overreaction going on here on the part of the good folks who buy tickets and watch on television. There will be a Brickyard race next season, and the season after that, and the season after that. NASCAR needs Indianapolis, and Indianapolis needs NASCAR. Both earn a certain degree of credibility and exposure from their association with the other. This isn't F1, which treated Indy and America like some sort of expensive toy it wanted but ultimately didn't need. The people who think Sunday's race will spell the end of NASCAR at Indianapolis -- or, among the more melodramatic in the fan base, see it as the beginning of the end of NASCAR itself -- need to realize that these are two strong, immensely popular and profitable institutions that will both be in operation for a very long time to come.

But that said, you can't put on a race like Sunday, at a place like Indianapolis, and expect people to just take it as a matter of course. Absolutely, the Brickyard mess was caused by a number of factors, and NASCAR managed the event as best it could from green flag to checkered. But other than a few drivers -- Ryan Newman and Dale Earnhardt Jr., most notably -- no one seemed willing to own up to the fact that mistakes had been made. The sight of so many people patting one another on the back, congratulating each other on just making it through the day, understandably had to stick in the gullet of a race fan who spent $100 on a ticket, $300 on gas and $200 on a hotel room to witness what essentially was a glorified tire test.

"It's nobody's fault. It's the package, and that's what we need to understand," Greg Stucker, Goodyear's director of race tire sales, said Sunday.

Actually, it's everybody's fault. It's NASCAR's fault for their restrictive test policy that only allows for a handful of full-field sessions each season. It's the crew chiefs' fault for not insisting on an Indianapolis test when Sprint Cup director John Darby polled them late last year on potential 2008 test sites. It's Goodyear's fault for making a massive leap of faith, for seeing the abnormally rapid tire wear during the two-day, three-driver test it conducted in April, and assuming that all would be fine despite the tremendous additional load the new car places on the right side. It's the fault of the three teams that took part in that tire test, who should have banged the drum louder over the possibility of a potentially debilitating problem.

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
• George: Surface not to blame
• Tires color Indy black, yellow
• Community: NASCAR Says ...

At last, it's all beginning to sink in. "It's obvious that we didn't go there with the right car/tire combination," Pemberton said Tuesday. "We've raced on that [repaved and diamond-ground] surface the last four years, and I wouldn't ask them to change that surface. We've got to do a better job."

They will. NASCAR needs to get a better feel for how car setups, which Goodyear believes often exacerbate tire problems, contribute to something like Sunday. Next year's test policy will be much more liberal, allowing for a number of private tests rather than the few official ones NASCAR currently oversees. Virtually every track, Pemberton said, will likely see some degree of testing prior to its event. Bet on teams flocking to Indianapolis in 2009. And the testing -- particularly that done by Goodyear -- needs to produce more definitive results.

"We probably need to do a better job of testing," Pemberton said. "Different racetracks obviously offer different challenges with their surfaces. Indianapolis probably gave us the most trouble we've seen in recent history. There's nothing wrong with the surface, we've just got to do a better job in testing and come out of there with a better position on our tires."

That's what people have wanted to hear since Sunday, when they stared agog at their television sets, wondering how on earth it was that tires -- glorified pieces of athletic equipment, really -- could so impact the Chase race (ask Matt Kenseth) and thrust an event at venerable Indianapolis into such chaos. Watching something like that unfold, at Indy of all places, was in equal measures disheartening, infuriating and sad. Sunday, we wondered if the officials running the show felt the same way.

Now we know. "It hurts us when we have a weekend like we've had. There's nothing worse than coming away from a race and knowing, knowing that the result wasn't even close. It wasn't even in the 25th percentile of what we're capable of doing, and what we do week in and week out," Pemberton said.

"I don't feel real good about it right now, and I think if you talked to anybody who's been around me the last 48 hours, they'll probably back me up on that. It's difficult, it's hard, we do beat ourselves up. But that's what makes us one of the best motorsports [series] in the entire world, that we take it personally, and when we see things that we know we can fix, we go and fix them. That's what we're going to set out to do. We're going to put this behind us, and when we go back to Indianapolis next year, we'll probably have the best Brickyard race we've ever had."

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.