ESPN Sprint Cup

Updated: July 26, 2009, 8:58 PM ET

Indianapolis NASCAR blog -- Sunday

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By Terry Blount
ESPN.com
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All times Eastern.

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5:13 p.m.

Jimmie Johnson becomes the first back-to-back winner of the Allstate 400 at The Brickyard, holding off teammate Mark Martin in an exciting battle over the final five laps.

Juan Pablo Montoya finished 11th in what has to be one of the most disappointing days of his career.

5:07 p.m.

Jimmie Johnson leads Mark Martin by half a second with 15 laps to go. Crew chief Alan Gustafson tells Mark Martin: "Go get him."

Martin is slowly catching Johnson. Martin is a little faster in Turn 2. He is only 0.26 of a second back with nine laps to go, but Johnson picked it up and was 0.6 up with seven laps left.

4:51 p.m.

Mark Martin inherits the lead, one of he biggest gifts of his career. Martin's first lead since Lap 4. But Jimmie Johnson jumps him on the outside and takes the lead in Turn 2.

Juan Pablo Montoya restarts 12th with 24 laps to go. Greg Biffle is third.

Jeff Burton had a tire problem and has to pit with 23 laps to go.

Things could get crazy now.

4:49 p.m.

Felix Sabates, co-owner of Juan Pablo Montoya's team with Chip Ganassi, had a request about the speeding call in a TV interview.

"I just want [NASCAR officials] to show me he was speeding," Sabates said. "If they show me, I'll be happy with that."

Dale Earnhardt Jr. blamed himself for the engine problem.

"The motor broke coming out of the pits," Earnhardt told ESPN's Jamie Little. "So it's possible I over-revved it in first gear. I had a great engine and we don't ever break them, so normally if they do, it's me or somebody else."

4:35 p.m.

Juan Pablo Montoya is caught speeding on pit road. Unbelievable. He's 12th after serving the pass-through penalty.

"If they do this to me, I'm going to kill them," Montoya said on his radio. "There's no way. I was on the green. Thank you NASCAR for screwing my day. We had it in the bag and they screwed us because I was not speeding. I swear on my children and my wife."

And Dale Earnhardt Jr. blows up to bring out a caution. Things just got a lot more interesting.

4:24 p.m.

Exciting this isn't. A single-file parade with little passing, and no passing up front.

Some late restarts might help, but you can't have restarts unless you have some cautions. Could a debris caution be coming soon?

At the moment, 115 laps into the 160-lap event, this is the fewest cautions at Indy since the 1995 Cup race, which had only one yellow flag when Dale Earnhardt went to Victory Lane.

4:10 p.m.

On Lap 100, the race has had only two cautions for a total of six laps. The last caution was on Lap 59.

Juan Pablo Montoya is cruising. Crew chief Brian Pattie had a message for his driver: "Nobody close man. Focus on the track."

4:06 p.m.

Juan Pablo Montoya has led more laps today than in his entire Cup career combined. His green-flag stop on Lap 92 is fast and clean.

The stops are complete and Montoya has a 5.5-second lead over Mark Martin on Lap 95.

If Montoya wins, he will become the first Indy 500 winner to go to Victory Lane in the Cup race at Indy. It also would make Chip Ganassi the first team owner to win both events.

3:57 p.m.

Juan Pablo Montoya is wearing out the field. The Colombian flash has a four-second lead on Lap 87.

The race needs some cautions and a few late restarts or Montoya is going to win this like Secretariat in the Belmont.

Sam Hornish Jr. on TV on how he hit the wall: "The car was really loose. It got underneath when I was trying to hold on."

Mark Martin, who is running second, told crew chief Alan Gustafson that the No. 5 Chevy is tight: "I need to turn," Martin said. "I need to make a gain in the turns."

3:51 p.m.

Halfway home. Here's the top 5: 1) Juan Pablo Montoya, 2) Mark Martin, 3) Brian Vickers, 4) Jimmie Johnson, 5) Tony Stewart.

Vickers is the surprise of that group. Montoya led 73 of the first 80 laps. He had a 3.6-second lead at the halfway mark.

3:43 p.m.

Sam Hornish Jr. slams into the wall on Lap 69 and says he has no brakes.

So one Indy 500 winner will not win today. The other one?

Juan Pablo Montoya is looking pretty darn good, running out front with a 2.1-second lead over Mark Martin on Lap 73.

Montoya said Saturday that winning wasn't his top priority today. I'm guessing his priorities have changed.

3:36 p.m.

Kyle Busch in a TV interview on what happened to his tire: "I'm not really sure. It's just unfortunate for the team. We were running decent, did a good job in a pit stop and got up to seventh.

"But I got stuck behind the 71 [David Gilliland] and pushed right front a little bit. I didn't think I was abusing it, but it started vibrating and two laps later it went."

Busch actually handled this situation like an adult. Nice to see.

3:29 p.m.

Kyle Busch felt something was wrong before the tire blew: "I'm gonna need a new pair of eyeballs when the race is over because of the vibration in here."

This is a critical problem for Busch because a bad finish today could drop the No. 18 Toyota team out of the top 12 and outside the Chase cutoff.

The two Joe Gibbs Racing drivers trying to make the Chase -- Denny Hamlin and Busch -- will not finish well today.

3:21 p.m.

Fifty laps complete. The top six: (1) Juan Pablo Montoya, (2) Mark Martin, (3) Tony Stewart, (4) Brian Vickers, (5) Jimmie Johnson, (6) Dale Earnhardt Jr.

At Lap 54, there are 29 cars on the lead lap. The race has gone caution-free since the first-lap spin by Robby Gordon. That is until Kyle Busch had a right-front tire blow on Lap 57. Lots of damage and back to the garage for the No. 18.

3:13 p.m.

Forty of 160 laps are in the books. Juan Pablo Montoya has a strong piece in the No. 42 Chevy, leading 33 of the first 40 laps.

Mark Martin is second, but he says the car is too loose. Tony Stewart is third, trying to earn his third win at the Brickyard.

Denny Hamlin in the garage with a broken drive shaft. The shifter came off in Hamlin's hand.

3:05 p.m.

Denny Hamlin may have a transmission problem. Coasting down to pit road on Lap 34. Horrible break for Hamlin, who had a car capable of winning today.

The cars have cycled through green-flag pit stops and Juan Pablo Montoya remains the leader. He's 2.1 seconds ahead of Mark Martin on Lap 36.

2:56 p.m.

The bottom line on the track may not be as good as most drivers thought it would be. Drivers are getting loose when they try to make a pass inside entering the turns.

To no one's surprise, start-and-parker Joe Nemechek has gone to the garage, completing 21 laps to get his big Brickyard payday.

2:45 p.m.

Scott Speed pits on Lap 12 under green after brushing the wall. Juan Pablo Montoya up 2.1 seconds on Mark Martin, who has moved back to second spot.

Joey Logano is blazing forward. He started last and now is running 25th on Lap 15.

2:39 p.m.

Juan Pablo Montoya takes the lead on the outside of Turn 1 on the restart on Lap 5. Mark Martin got loose down low.

Montoya builds a 1.3-second lead in two laps. Dale Earnhardt Jr. is second.

Elliott Sadler is in the garage with an oil leak. Not going to be a good day for the No. 19 Dodge.

2:33 p.m.

Caution comes out at the end of Lap 1 when Robby Gordon spins.

He said he got into someone's oil.

That probably came from the car of Elliott Sadler, who was black-flagged by NASCAR and told to pit. Sadler is using the new Dodge engine today. He's gone back to the garage now.

Bobby Labonte just barely squeezed by the spinning No. 7 of Gordon.

2:23 p.m.

As expected, this is the smallest crowd ever for this event. Huge chunks of empty seats in the frontstretch grandstands. Turn 3 stands have more empty seats than filled seats.

But it's still a crowd of 150,000 or so in the 257,000-seat facility. In what other sports event would 150,000 spectators be considered a bad turnout?

1:48 p.m.

Kyle Busch gave a revealing interview to ESPN's Marty Smith during the prerace show.

"In the heat of the moment, I can't think of anything but being mad," Busch said. "I have to do a better job."

On his crew: "I've had guys that support me, but maybe none that would take a bullet for me."

What would it take for them to do that?

"For me to become a better leader and someone they can follow," Busch said.

1:28 p.m.

Because we're at the Brickyard, here's the latest from Tony George, who was ousted recently from his position as CEO of Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He also no longer is in control of the IRL, the league he founded.

Here are some of the comments George made today on his Vision Racing Web site:

"I continue to be perplexed by the board's recent decision to relieve me from my responsibility as CEO. To date, I have not received a reasonable explanation as to why.

"I feel as though after 20 years I am entitled to one. I can tell you I stood resolute in my conviction on the direction we needed to go. Beyond my being dismissed, I am unaware of any changes that are being contemplated that will have a meaningful impact on the organization.

"My question for the board has been not one of who is going to manage the company, but rather, who is going to lead it? There is a distinction."

Wow.

1 p.m.

Summer days in Indiana don't get better than this, folks. The sun is shining, temperatures are in the upper 70s and the cars are lined up on the track at the Brickyard for the 16th Allstate 400.

A few early notes:

• The No. 20 Toyota team changed the engine Sunday, which forced Joey Logano to give up his 10th-row starting spot and move to the back at the green flag.

• Dale Earnhardt Jr. said he feels fine today and doesn't expect any problems during the race. He was battling a nasty stomach virus the previous three days.

• Robin Pemberton, NASCAR vice president of competition, praised Goodyear officials in the driver's meeting, pointing out the vast improvement in the tires this year at Indy. "I'll speak for everyone in here: Good job," he said.

• Roger Penske is here. That's a little surprising because there's an IRL race at Edmonton today. Penske's drivers will start in the top three spots in the IndyCar race. Will Power won the pole. But Penske is hoping to see one of his three Cup drivers -- Kurt Busch, David Stremme or former Indy 500 winner Sam Hornish Jr. -- give him his first Allstate 400 at the Brickyard victory today.

Terry Blount covers motorsports for ESPN.com. His book, "The Blount Report: NASCAR's Most Overrated and Underrated Drivers, Cars, Teams, and Tracks," was published by Triumph Books and is available in bookstores. Click here to order a copy. Blount can be reached at terry@blountspeak.com.