2008 Allstate 400 at the Brickyard

The 2008 Allstate 400 at the Brickyard was the twentieth race of the 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup season and the sixteenth NASCAR race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS). It was also the first race under the ESPN/ABC section of the TV coverage for the 2008 season. The 160-lap, convert|400|mi|km event was raced on July 27th at the convert|2.5|mi|km Indianapolis Motor Speedway located in Speedway, Indiana (a separate town completely surrounded by Indiana's state capital). Along with ESPN, the IMS Radio Network, working with Performance Racing Network, provided radio coverage (along with Sirius Satellite Radio,) with both broadcasts starting at 1 PM US EDT.

Pre-Race News

As there was a two week gap in the schedule between the LifeLock.com 400 and this race, the last break of the season before a stretch of seventeen straight races, there was plenty of news stories to go around.
* As expected, 2008 Daytona 500 champion Ryan Newman and Penske Racing parted ways, effective following the season's end.
* JTG Racing sold one-half interest to former Cleveland Cavaliers basketball star and ESPN anayist Brad Daugherty, and will be renamed JTG Daugherty Racing and enter the 2009 season with Marcos Ambrose as their driver. Little Debbies will be the sponsor of the #47 car.
*Technical Director Steve Peterson, who led NASCAR's safety drive following the 2001 Daytona 500, passed away on July 15th at the age of 58 of an apperant heart attack. Peterson mandated the HANS device, the SAFER barrier and the Car of Tomorrow in the seven years since the death of Dale Earnhardt in the final moments of that race.
*Due to their recent economic troubles, General Motors has announced that they will not renew their contracts to be the official pace car providers for Bristol, New Hampshire or Richmond.
*Two weeks earlier, Tony Stewart announced he will be part-owner of Stewart-Haas Racing in 2009. Now, he will bring a new number (14, made famous by A.J. Foyt) and sponsors (Office Depot, coming from Carl Edwards' Roush Fenway Racing #99 and Old Spice).
*Discussions have started between Chip Ganassi Racing and Michael Waltrip Racing on a possible merger between the two groups. Ganassi shut down the #40 team prior to the Coke Zero 400 while Waltrip's team will lose UPS after the season, with the sole sticking points remaining being which team will close to get within NASCAR's four-team cap as of 2010, and the brand of car to use (Waltrip teams drive Toyotas, while Ganassi uses Dodge.)

Qualifying

Jimmie Johnson held off Mark Martin to win the pole position. Bill Elliott, after starting the first 14 races at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, failed in his final run to do so, as he will retire following the season.

Failed to qualify: Bill Elliott (#21), Stanton Barrett (#50), Johnny Sauter (#08), Tony Raines (#34).

Race

In pre-race practice, teams realized that the tires provided for the race wore down quickly, due to the abrasive course at Indianapolis and the Car of Tomorrow, as this was the first race for the car at Indianapolis. Because of this concern, NASCAR announced that they would have a competition yellow after ten laps to check tire wear.

The excessive wear led NASCAR to follow procedure first adopted at the 1969 Talladega 500, calling cautions every 10-12 laps for safety issues, allowing teams to pit and change tires. Because of an accident involving Michael Waltrip on Lap 4, the first competition yellow would not wave until Lap 14. The only other non-competition yellow came halfway through the race when Brian Vickers' Toyota had its engine fail. All in all, nine competition yellow flags were thrown, and when all was said and done, Jimmie Johnson won the race after a battle with Carl Edwards.

Post-Race

Two days following the running of the race, NASCAR VP of competition Robin Pemberton formally apologized for the problems, saying that it didn't go to IMS with the correct car-tire combination. To rectify those problems, Goodyear is staging two additional tire tests at Indy in the fall, the first with only three teams as per the tiremaker's policy September 22 and 23; the other with as many as 12 teams on October 7 and 8 to detect what might have gone wrong and test a new tire to be hopefully used for the 2009 race.