On a day dominated by former Indy 500 winner Juan Pablo Montoya, it was instead a Hendrick Motorsports driver that raised the trophy at the end of the day and made history in the process. Leading the final twenty-four laps, Jimmie Johnson battled with teammate Mark Martin to take his third win in the Brickyard 400.

The complexion of Sunday’s sixteenth running of the Brickyard 400 completely changed during the final round of green flag pit stops. After setting the pace for the majority of the event, Montoya brought the No. 42 Target Dodge to pit road for the final time. With a five second lead over Martin, the 2006 Indianapolis 500 winner appeared to be on his way to the biggest win of his stock car racing career. However, after leaving the pits NASCAR hit the team with speeding penalty ruining his chances for the win.

Montoya was clearly upset with NASCAR’s call, arguing there was no chance he was speeding and going as far as swearing on his wife and children. “I don’t bad mouth NASCAR, but if they do this to me I’m going to kill them,” Montoya said over the radio. “Thank you NASCAR for screwing my day.”

The Earnhardt Ganassi Racing driver went on to finish in the eleventh spot.

With Montoya out of the picture, the race was now in the hands of Martin and Johnson. Restarting the race on Lap 138, Martin lined up on the inside with his teammate to his right. Racing hard, Johnson powered his way around the No. 5 coming off Turn 2.

As the laps clicked away Martin closed in on the back bumper of his teammate, but in the end it was Jimmie Johnson, Chad Knaus and the No. 48 team who were kneeling to kiss the bricks. Taking the win, Johnson became the first driver to win back-to-back Brickyard 400s and gave Hendrick Motorsports its fifth 1-2 finish of the year.

“That was unbelievable, I hope the fans enjoyed that race,” an elated Johnson said in Victory Lane. “I can’t say enough about this race team and all of Hendrick Motorsports, to be up there battling with my teammate Mark Martin. Damn is he fast. For an old guy he had me pretty worried.

“Those last 15-20 laps we had to drive it so hard to stay ahead of the five,” Johnson added. “I was better in three and four than he was and he had me beat in one and two, it was kind of a give and take thing and luckily we held him off.”

“I was beating Jimmie pretty bad off of turn two,” Martin said following his runner-up finish. “I knew that for the last 15 laps for sure.  But he was beating me pretty bad off of four.  I was gonna have to make it happen off of two.  I made some great runs.  But I really thought several of the times I was gonna hit the wall over there.  I absolutely could not go any faster.  In fact, I can't believe I didn't.  The third to the last lap, the last lap both, I went through there beyond my good judgment to get those runs.  It just wasn't enough.”

Hometown favorite and points leader Tony Stewart looked to put the No. 14 made famous by his hero A.J. Foyt back in Victory Lane at Indy. Starting the day from the seventh spot, Stewart quickly went to work making his way towards the front. With Monotya, Martin and Johnson in charge of the day Stewart never made a mark on the race and was able to come home in the third spot, extending his lead in the series standings.

“Pretty satisfied with it,” Stewart explained of his run. “Obviously you want to win here at Indy.  You do every week.  But we had a solid starting position, a good pit selection on pit road.  We had one little hiccup in the pits.  We got to the top three or four there pretty early.  That was kind of our spot.  We had one stop that got us back to seventh or eighth.  We were able to get two of those spots pretty quick.  It took the rest of the race to get the rest of the way up there.”

Tires were never an issue throughout the weekend at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Sunday’s race was no different. The sixteenth running of the Brickyard 400 was slowed only three times by the yellow flag and featured nine lead changes among seven different drivers, with Montoya leading a race-high 116 laps. Next week the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series returns to the Pocono Mountains to race on the tricky three-corner track.

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