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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
CUP: Brickyard Ready To Roll
Today’s race will be the 16th running of the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard...
Tom Jensen  |  Posted July 26, 2009   Speedway, IN
Today’s race will be the 16th running of the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
The 16th running of the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard is ready to go today, with beautiful weather at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the green flag set for 2:23 p.m. ET.

This will be the 20th race of the season, and along with the Daytona 500 is one of the biggest races of the year. The prestige is huge here and so is the sense of history. Following are some of the key storylines going into today’s race:

1. OLD GUYS RULE On the pole for the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard is 50-year-old Mark Martin, with 53-year-old Bill Elliott rolling off fourth. If either Martin or Elliott wins today, they will surpass Al Unser as the oldest driver to win any major race at the venerable 2.5-mile oval.

Asked if there was hope for the senior citizen brigade in NASCAR, Martin responded affirmatively. “There's hope, buddy. Did you see Bill Elliott out there today?” Martin said after qualifying on Saturday. “Believe me, there's hope. The guy's still got it. He's still pushing the button.”

“I’m gonna give it my best shot,” added Elliott. “If a 50-year-old (Martin) can win, I think a few more years ain’t gonna hurt a thing.”

2. PRODIGAL SONS Indiana natives and teammates Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman will be among the favorites to take the victory today. Stewart’s won this race twice already, in 2005 and ’07, and would enjoy a victory as co-owner of Stewart-Haas Racing as much as he would a victory as a driver. Stewart qualified seventh and Newman 17th.

“When you can have a good run like that, it gives us a lot of good momentum going into happy hour and (Sunday),” said Stewart. “This place is not a track that gets grooves three- or four-wide. You know that you’ve got to start up front. You don’t have to, but it helps if you do.”

“I feel pretty good about the car,” said Newman. “I think that we were better in race trim than we were in qualifying trim.

3. FEARSOME FOURSOME Hendrick Motorsports has been the dominant Sprint Cup team by far this season, especially if you include the Stewart-Haas quasi-team cars that run Hendrick engines and chassis. Mark Martin qualified his Hendrick Chevrolet on the pole, two spots ahead of teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr., while Jeff Gordon has a record four Brickyard victories and Jimmie Johnson has won two of the last three.

Collectively, Stewart, Gordon and Johnson have won eight of the first 15 Brickyards, including the last five. They will be tough to beat.

“The track is in good shape, and the tires are good,” said Johnson, who qualified 16th, six spots ahead of Gordon. “Across the board, we have everything in line for a good race. I think everything is pointing in the direction of a good race.”

“The car was good in race trim,” said Gordon. “We’ve qualified terrible here and done well in the race. It’s not the end of the world.”

4. JUAN MORE TIME? Juan Pablo Montoya is a force to be reckoned with at the Brickyard. He won the Indy 500 here in 2000, and in his first Brickyard 400 in 2007 qualified second and finished second. This year, he qualified second as well, though he admitted he’s more interested in making the Chase for the Sprint Cup than he is winning this race.

“I think if you're fifth in points and you're getting top fives every week, you can take more risk, you can take two tire stops,” said Montoya. “You can get away with a lot of things. You look at the points, we're ahead of the 5 car (Mark Martin) and ahead of the 18 car (Kyle Busch) in points. One of them won three races, the other one won four, and I don't have a single top five. You tell me if points racing doesn't help.”

5. KEEP AN EYE ON KASEY Kasey Kahne, who qualified his Richard Petty Motorsports Dodge in eighth place, has finished second, fourth and seventh in five prior Brickyard starts. He just might be the dark horse on Sunday.

Team owner Richard Petty, who earlier this year fielded an Indy 500 entry for the first time, is very impressed with the track. “The big deal is that you are coming into history, even when you just walk around,” said Petty. “The thing’s been going since 1909, and all the great drivers and team owners that have been here to make this all work. No matter where you go in the world, you say Indianapolis, and they don’t think about football or basketball, they think about the race.”




Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief for SPEEDtv.com, the former Executive Editor of NASCAR Scene and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. He is the author of ?Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of SPEED,? and has appeared on television and radio shows to discuss NASCAR racing. Jensen is the past President of the National Motorsports Press Association. Jensen is the 1997 National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year and has won numerous national and state awards for news reporting, columns and feature writing. The Answer Man is back at SPEEDtv.com. Tom Jensen answers your questions during every race week and looks forward to hearing from you - please e-mail it to

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