These seem to be troubled days for many of NASCAR’s Sprint Cup elite as several of top tier teams come back from their week off dealing with problems that are leaving a lot of question marks within the Sprint Cup Series.
Mark Martin is not in that number however, as he cruised to the pole at the All-State Brickyard 400 during qualifying on Saturday. In doing so, Martin, at age 50, became the oldest driver to stat from the pole at Indy.
Fresh off his win in the Lifelock.com 400 two weeks ago at Chicago, Martin looked unstoppable as he drove his Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet to the pole. And for Martin, it was just another page in an unbelievable 2009 chapter of his career. But he’s not taking anything for granted.
“I prefer not to think about what possible result could be tomorrow," he said. "I can tell you I think it's gonna be a dogfight for this race. I really do. I'd like to be in the fray. That's about as far as I'll go thinking about it.”
Jimmie Johnson does think a little more about tomorrow. Specifically, the upcoming Chase for the Sprint Cup as he seeks a record fourth consecutive Sprint Cup Championship.
Johnson certainly looked ready to defend his Cup title Sunday as he shot past Martin late in a race dominated by Juan Pablo Montoya to become the first driver in NASCAR history to win consecutive Brickyard 400 Championships at the Indicanpolis Motor Speedway.
Montoya dominated the race, actually leading mroe laps than any other driver. But a pit late speeding penalty late in the race took Montoya out of the running and allowed Hendrick Motorsports teammates Johnson and Martin 1-2 finish at the end.
"I swear on my children and my wife that I was not speeding!" he shouted over his radio. "There is no way! Thank you NASCAR for screwing my day."
"I hate him for it. I know it is a story, Juan led so many laps. said Johnson after the race in the media room. “it is a story, Juan led so many laps. We come back and look at it two months from now, it's going to be a 'W' next to my name on the stat sheet. That's all that matters."”
Martin was just thankful for his second place finish.
“I would have liked to win it," Martin said. "Just got beat by Superman."
Dale Earnhardt Jr, qualified well enough to start third from the pole. But a stomach virus the driver had been suffering from since Thursday threatedn to not allow him to finish the race.
Hendrick Motorsports had planned to let Brad Keslowski take some practice laps this afternoon and to use him as a back-up driver today if necessary. That plan may have fallen through as rains prevented the practice laps.
Earnhardt Jr. has been plagued with a high fever and vomiting when he got to Indianapolis, and Crew Chief Lance McGrew wanted Keselowski on standby in case Earnhardt needed a relief driver. However, when rain delayed the race qualifying on Saturday, Keselowski couldn’t get a required practice lap in Earnhardt's car before he had to be at nearby O'Reilly Raceway Park to race JRMotorsports Nationwide Series Car in that series’ race Saturday night.
"He's (Keselowski) not going to be able to come out here, so we're going to have to man up and not have a backup plan. That's all right," Earnhardt said before the race.
The third place qualifying position was the best for the No. 88 team since McGrew replaced Tony Eury Jr. as crew chief for Earnhardt seven races ago.
As the race started, Earnhardt’s stomach flu subsided enough to the point that he was feeling pretty normal. In fact, he ran fairy well, keeping in the top ten for most of the time until he blew the engine with just 33 laps remaining that left him in 36th place and blaming himself for the failure.
"We haven't had engine problems, so I assume it was driver error," he said. "I broke the valve train on the last pit stop and a couple of the pieces dropped to the bottom of the motor. They rattled around and must have blown the engine. It's pretty frustrating. But after the year we've had, it feels good to run better."
Four time Cup Champion Jeff Gordon prepared for the race after announcing that he has decided not to have a second surgery to relieve continued back pain that has plagued him for much of the last two seasons.
“The first one hasn’t seemed to help and I don’t see any reason to think a second would do any better.” Gordon said during qualifying.
Gordon said that because the procedure was “too invasive”, that he had opted to simply try to deal with the pain.
Rumors have been rampant throughout NASCAR insiders that if Gordon could not find an effective cure for his continuing back ailments, that next season could be the final season for him. Speculation has centered on a possible “farewell season”. Neither Gordon or Hendrick Motorsports has made any comments on the rumors.
Gordon is currently enjoying a great season, running second in the Sprint Cup Point Standings behind leader Tony Stewart. His spot in the rankings has obscured the fact that Gordon is currently mired in a career-long winless streak.
Another team facing challenges they did not have two weeks ago is the Roush Racing team of 2009 Daytona 500 winner and former series champion Matt Kenseth. Kenseth and team owner Jack Roush was notified Thursday by long-time sponsor Dewalt Tools that they will be discontinuing their sponsorship of the No. 17 team after the current season.
This places a tough hurdle in the path for one of NASCAR’s most solid racing teams as they must now search for a new full-time sponsor in what is already a shrinking sponsor market for Sprint Cup teams.
Richard Childress Racing driver Kevin Harvick was the subject of swirling rumors about his future with RCR both before the race and aftr his Top - Ten finish in Sunday’s race.
While the unusually “Not-So Happy” Harvick is under contract with Childress through the 2010 season, rumors abounded throughout the Indy pits the last three days that his frustration with the problems at RCR. None of RCR’s four teams are within reach of the Chase for the Cup twelve team cut-off right now and Harvick’s team hasn’t won since the 2007 Daytona 500.
Despite RCR boss Richard Childress’ emphatic statement during the week that Harvick would be the driver for the No. 29 Pennzoil team in 2010, Harvick didn’t hesitate to express his feelings and frustrations to the media in pre-race interviews.
"As a team, we've been off in everything," Harvick said. "Everybody is kind of stale right now. Everything is not fast enough. Everything isn't run good enough to be where everybody wants to be. I don't really have anything to look at or look forward to. No matter what happens, in the end, Richard (Childress) and I will always be friends.”
"I don't have anything cooking or anything different. “ Harvick added. “Right now I'm the driver of the No. 29 Shell Pennzoil RCR Chevrolet. That's my job. That's what I intend to focus on. Everything else will take care of itself. Right now we're working on Indy."
Speculation has had Harvick either moving his own Nationwide Series team to the Cup Series next season, or driving a third car for Tony Stewart led Stewart-Haas Racing. Harvick and Stewart are long-time friends and competitors.
Stewart for his part, finished third on Sunday and maintained the series points lead.
Finally, the Indianapolis pits provided the forum for a much anticipated meeting on Friday between former Cup Champion Kurt Busch and eventual race winner Johnson.
Busch and Johnson had an on-track banging and bumping altercation two weeks ago in the Lifelock.com 400 followed by heated words from Busch who said he was “losing faith in the ability of our three-time champion.” Johnson had text-messaged Busch for a meeting and Busch had not responded to the request. So there was some anticipation as to whether the two would settle their differences prior to today’s race.
Busch walked up to Johnson in the pits, smiling at the former champion and the two talked and settled their differences amicably.
"It was nothing," Johnson said. "He walked over smiling.”
“There's been a couple of periods in my career where no matter where I go on the track I end up driving into somebody and it's the same dang guy," Johnson said. "It ended up being Kurt the last few weeks and I assured him that it was nothing that I'm searching him out for, it's just been circumstances."
Johnson said that he assured Busch there was no personal issues between them and the two left the pits smiling.
Martin and Stewart left the pits smiling too, hoping to avoid problems similiar problems as their NASCAR counterparts enroute to what they hope will be a 2009 Sprint Cup Championship. For Stewart, a title would be his third. For the veteran Martin, it would be his very first Cup Series Championship.
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