http://www.allpar.com/news/ind...ys-at-the-brickyard/

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« Douglas Clauson, Mopar Parts Man Extraordinaire, passes onDodge Boys at the BrickyardJuly 27th, 2009 by J.R.
No brick kissing this year for Dodge! But it was a beautiful day of racing on the famed 2.5 mile rectangle of Indianapolis Motor Speedway; unfortunately the sun just didn’t shine favorably for the Dodge Boys as the averaged finish of the seven Dodge race teams was a mere 23rd– more on the individual team accomplishments in a moment.

Overall there were fewer cautions than previous years, but from a Dodge race team prospective the first one was the most damaging. Robby Gordon brought out the first of three cautions today for the 400 mile race having spun coming off turn #4 in oil left from Elliott Sadler’s Dodge. Sadler was blacked flagged on the second lap due to the oil leak, and it would take the Best Buy team almost 114 laps to repair. This reporter never heard what the cause or remedy to the oil leak was, I can only speculate from the length of time that it had to be transmission related. Note: Elliott was looking forward to a great run today as he was running the new R6P8 Dodge engine, a first for him in a Sprint Cup race. With him finishing 40th out of a 43 car field, he slides two places to 25th overall in Sprint Cup points.

The best running Dodge’s were those driven by Kasey Kahne (Budweiser) and Reed Sorenson (Valvoline), they finished 7th and 13th respectively. Kasey continues in 8th place for the Chase for the Championship and Reed moved up two places to 26th in points. It was evident that being out front ahead of the pack of cars with clean air was crucial and neither race team could make the right adjustments to get the jump needed on the restarts. After the third caution flag for a Dale Earnhardt Jr. engine failure, Reed restarted in the top ten, but quickly fell back, it appeared his car was set up to work better on long green flag runs.

As a long-time Juan Montoya race fan, I felt for him today. He lead most of the laps today, was leading the race on the final pit stop only to see his win get destroyed due to his speeding on pit road. In post race interviews he was quoted as saying his car was “killer fast today” and only NASCAR could allow for someone else to catch him. Having served his penalty with only 32 laps remaining, and without clean air, Juan couldn’t move much on the field and finished a very disappointed 11th.

The eventual winner, Jimmie Johnson passed his teammate Mark Martin with 22 laps remaining to become the first back-to-back winner of the Brickyard 400 in NASCAR history.

Dodge Charger Race Teams finishes:

#9 (Budweiser), Kasey Kane, 7th
#43 (Valvoline), Reed Sorenson, 13th
#12 (Penske Racing), David Stremme, 16th
#44 (Hunt Brother’s Pizza), A.J. Allmendinger, 20th
#2 (Miller Lite), Kurt Busch, 27th
#77 (Mobil 1), Sam Hornish, Jr., 37th
#19 (Best Buy), Elliott Sadler, 40th

With only six races to go to determine the final twelve race teams to compete for this year’s Cup Championship, Kurt Busch and Kasey Kahne must do better than their last time out at the triangle track of Pocono raceway. Let’s all hope we see stronger finishes by all seven Dodge teams.

Juan i felt bad for him to, with the car he had and the 5 second lead comeing in.
, i would have went slower than need be down to the pits. even though he thought he did. what a shame.