Was that really a race?

I can only assume that when NASCAR returned to Indianapolis Motor Speedway this weekend they had no idea the tires Goodyear planned to supply were going to be as bad as they were.
What was presented to fans Sunday on ESPN and live at Indianapolis could hardly be considered a NASCAR race. It seemed that NASCAR had to throw a caution every 20 laps or so to prevent tires from shredding.

For lack of a better term, Goodyear just screwed up. Tires were coming apart right down the middle tire and there was nothing anyone could do about it. The images of tires blowing apart, ala Matt Kenseth, are not what anyone wanted to see.

While I understand why NASCAR was throwing the cautions, I highly disagree with it. The fans at home and at Indianapolis came to the track to watch a NASCAR race, not heat races, which is what the race ended up turning into.

The fans at Indianapolis were obviously not happy with the way the race was being run and I can’t imagine the fans at home weren’t much happier. I can only hope that both NASCAR and Goodyear use Sunday’s race as a learning experience so that they don’t make the same mistakes again.

Meanwhile, Jimmie Johnson earned his second win at the Brickyard by out dueling Carl Edwards. Johnson lead a race high 71 laps and was easily the class of the field most of the day. Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus did a good job managing their tires and using strategy to keep them up front when it counted most.

Interestingly, Johnson’s victory Sunday is the first win this season for Hendrick Motorsports that didn’t come thanks to fuel mileage. Who would have guessed that after the 2007 season Hendrick Motorsports had?

Elsewhere in the field, Elliott Sadler, Jamie McMurray and and AJ Allmendinger all recorded their best finishes of the 2008 season. Sadler looked like he had a car to catch Denny Hamlin before that late caution reset the field with Johnson out front, yet he still finished an impressive fourth. McMurray ran in the top 10 most of the day and so did Allmendinger, who recorded his first career top 10 finish.