Tony Stewart wins at Brickyard--Montoya has it figured out

Tony Stewart gets his second Cup win at the Brickyard after a late race duel with his "friend" and part-time employer, Kevin Harvick.

A back straight pass, re-pass and then cross over move had Stewart and Harvick trading paint with only a handful of laps remaining.  Harvick got the worst of the damage and had to settle for a seventh place finish.

Juan Pablo Montoya, in his first race at Indy in a stock car, was a quick study.  He finished his first Allstate 400 at the Brickyard in second place.  Making that feat even more amazing is the lack of practice time JPM had on the track after Friday's practices were washed out by rain.

The Buzz ON PIT ROW is:

Should Tony Stewart be Penalized for saying "bullshit" on a live broadcast?

The Fast Lap this week asks:

1)  Did NASCAR make a mistake by opening pit road for pit stops, on lap 137, with Junior sitting prone in the middle of pit road?

2) Was there anything to the "love tap" by Kevin Harvick on the back straight after the race; or was it really a congratulatory bump??

3) Will the merger of Robert Yates Racing with Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing pave the way for Sebastien Bourdais to move to NASCAR?

4)  Grade ESPN's first race back in the Cup Series.

Let us know how you feel; about these questions, or anything else that happened during the running of the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard.   If we like your comments we could use them on the air during Tuesday's ON PIT ROW.  Leave us a comment on the blog or call the show--toll free at 1-877-502-8255 between 5-7pm edt on Tuesdays.

photo:  ON PIT ROW--BethAnne Heisler

Comments

[robert bourne]

JPM will be a factor the rest of the year even if he is not in the chase alot depends on the Ganassi cars which have shown some flashes of goodness..

The pit road thing was a mistake but by the time they realised that Junior didn't have the momentum to make it to the turn off for the garage it was to late...

Please no mountain out of a molehill with the B..S... thing

Bourdais..nope

ESPN 7 out of ten...

[Bob]

Answers:

Tony "BS" Stewart: Yes he should be fined. The precedent was set with JR's "poo" comment at 'Dega and it must be followed now - although I don't think either one should have been fined in the first place, but I digress (damn Janet Jackson).

1) Pit Road: Yes they made a mistake. Pit road should never have been opened with a stalled car sitting in the middle of it. He didn't even have his steering wheel locked on, it was sitting on his dash. I imagine his seat belts were undone too. I don't think he knew there would be 42 other cars coming down at him when he stopped there and got ready to get out. It could have been serious.

2) It think it was both. Congratulations on your win, and here is a little damage your shop has to fix like mine. If Harvick was really out to get Tony it would have been a little more than a side swipe - look at Harvick's history, if he wanted to get you he would have.

3) Yes, but not as soon as you might expect. I don't think they want to go the way of Cal Wells, so they'll take their time first and work out the bugs before they put an open wheel guy in the car.

4) ESPN's coverage rates a B+/A- (much better than the beer comercial formate that Fox follows). I still think they can improve their commentary a bit, but the 'extras' like Brewer's Garage were great! Where's Bob Jenkins? I think him and Dr. Jerry Punch would be good together.

Did you notice that Juan followed his Indy line around the track? He didn't follow the traditional stock car grove, and still finished second to Stewart. Awesome.