Sunday, July 25, 2010

Jamie McMurray Takes Brickyard - Completes Ganassi Trifecta

Jamie McMurray took the lead on the final restart at the 2010 Brickyard 400 and never looked back, completing the Ganassi Racing sweep of the Daytona 500, Indianapolis 500 and Brickyard 400. Kevin Harvick held off Greg Biffle for second place. McMurray's teammate Juan Pablo Montoya crashed out late after having the dominant car for most of the race. Mark Martin ran strong early and Tony Stewart made a late charge but it was a day for the Ganassi boys to show their stuff. It was also a day for track position as whoever got in front usually stayed there. The surprise of the day was the poor showing for Hendrick teammates Jimmy Johnson and Jeff Gordon who both ran into trouble and were never serious contenders for the win.

The following slideshow captures some of the action from my Turn 3 vantage point, where the cars seemed to bounce through the corner, often running below the white line near the grass. It was really a shame that Montoya found the Turn 4 wall but he found himself back in the pack after his last pit stop when others, including McMurray, took only two tires while his team elected to go with four. That was pretty much the race, as Juan caromed off the wall and collected Dale Earnhardt Jr to thoroughly ruin the day for the Hendrick team. It was not nearly as hot and steamy today in Indy as the first two days of the Brickyard weekend, and the crwod was nowhere near what it had been for prior events here. For at least the second year in a row, the Indy 500 crowd was substantially larger than the Brickyard crowd. I would think that would concern NASCAR perhaps moreso than IMS. For the 17th year running on the world's most famous racetrack, NASCAR still put on a show for the diehards who braved the weather and stuck it out to the finish.



No comments: