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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
JENSEN: Controversy, Anyone?
Nothing like a little controversy at the Brickyard to stir the pot and get folks riled up, but good...
Tom Jensen  |  Posted July 27, 2009   Speedway, IN
SPEED.com's Editor-in-Chief Tom Jensen. (Image: SPEED)
Nothing like a little controversy at the Brickyard to stir the pot and get folks riled up, but good.

As the whole world knows by now, Juan Pablo Montoya lost the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard when he was nailed for a pit-road speeding penalty by NASCAR on Lap 126 of the 160-lap race. Up to that point, Montoya’s Earnhardt Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates Chevrolet Impala SS was far and away the dominant car in the field, leading 116 of the first 125 laps, often by a margin of as much as 5 seconds.

The pit road speed limit for Sunday’s race was 55 miles per hour. NASCAR allows drivers a 5 mph variance, meaning the real speed limit on Sunday was 60 mph. According to NASCAR, Montoya exceeded the speed limit in two sections of pit road, where he was clocked at 60.06 and 60.11 mph, respectively.

The penalty cost Montoya an easy victory and opened the door for Hendrick Motorsports teammates Mark Martin and Jimmie Johnson to duke it out over the final 25 laps, Johnson prevailing in a tight battle. In the process, he became the first driver in history to win consecutive Brickyards, as he won the race for the third time in four years.

It also opened the door for fans to be morally outraged that NASCAR plays favorites to Hendrick Motorsports, didn’t want a foreign driver to win, etc., etc. Judged by the e-mails I’ve received already, there are a whole lot of P.O.’d fans as of early Monday morning.

NASCAR would point out that the this was not a judgment call, that the numbers are recorded electronically and that you’re either legal or you aren’t, no ifs, ands or buts about it.

Then again, if you think back to the NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Kentucky Speedway last month, where 19 different drivers picked up pit-road speeding penalties, there’s no question why race fans look at what happened to Montoya as a clear case of getting screwed.

One way to eliminate — or at least lessen — questions about pit road speeding is to publish the speeds when the stops occur, something Johnson’s crew chief, Chad Knaus, would like to see. “Once you hit pit road, we don't have any reference,” Knaus said. “We have mathematical equations based on the tire stagger, gear ratio, the pit road speed we have to work off of. I'm hoping that at some point we'll be able to see the pit road speeds published because that will allow us to work within limits that we're comfortable with.”

Lost in the debate about whether Montoya got hosed or not, though, are two other critical issues: 1. He never should have been that close to the edge in the first place; and 2. The Brickyard was another example of how it’s just about impossible to pass the leader if he’s got clean air.

Montoya had a lead of about 5 seconds when he got caught speeding. While you obviously want to get on and off pit road as quickly as possible every time, this was the one stop when Montoya should have been conservative — and crew chief Brian Pattie should have made it clear to Montoya to play it safe coming in. Montoya never should have been in the position to get penalized. He made a critical mistake and it cost him the race. Period.

The second part is even a thornier issue, in my humble opinion. Out in front of the field, Montoya was in a league of his own, able to pull away at will from Martin, his closest competitor on the day. Once he got the pit road speeding penalty and was dumped back in the pack, though, Montoya wasn’t any faster than the cars around him.

The guy who had a 4- to 5-second lead for most of the first 125 laps, spent the final 20 laps waging a tooth-and-nail battle with Joey Logano for 11th place.

How good your car is should be a function of setup and tires, not a function of track position. That to me is a whole lot more important than pit-road penalties. The reality is that the Brickyard was a dull processional, as it usually is every year, but with NASCAR’s new-generation race car, passing for the lead is harder than ever. And that’s not a good thing for the long-term health of the sport.





The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEEDtv.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or Speed Channel


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


The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEED.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or SPEED
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