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Johnson survives tire troubles to win 2nd Brickyard event

Jimmie Johnson celebrated his second victory at Indianapolis Motor Speedway with a burnout on Sunday.

Appropriately, one of his tires exploded.

Johnson survived horrendous tire troubles that made the Brickyard 400 a caution-filled debacle because the Goodyear product was not durable enough to withstand the lack of downforce on NASCAR’s new car and the speeds and surface of Indy.

“We came with the best tire we had for the conditions and we fell short. We’ll try to get it right,” said Greg Stucker, director of race tire sales for Goodyear.

“I don’t think anybody likes to race like this, us included. We’ll do what we can to make it better,” he said.

But there was nothing Goodyear could do on Sunday, when NASCAR threw six competition cautions designed to force teams to pit and change their tires.

It meant the longest green-flag run was an embarrassing 12 laps, causing teams to fear both tire failures and a possible supply shortage. Goodyear shipped in 800 tires earmarked for use next week in Pocono before the race, but they ultimately weren’t needed.

It was little consolation as drivers feared going full speed and crew chiefs were forced to gamble on tire strategy. No one was certain when NASCAR would call a caution, or if the sanctioning body would eventually decide to let the drivers go as long as they wanted.

Instead, NASCAR called them roughly every 10-to-12 laps.

Johnson fretted over the final two stops, unsure what the right strategy would be.

He took two tires on his final stop to emerge from pit road as the leader, then held off Carl Edwards and Denny Hamlin over a final seven-lap green flag run to the finish line.

“I was worried the stop before that maybe we had to go two less to win this thing,” Johnson said.

Edwards, sympathetic to NASCAR’s plight, said he raced at 100 percent over the final run but couldn’t catch Johnson.

“That’s a long day. I know everybody’s trying to do their best,” Edwards said. “I just, personally, [want] to say to the fans, everybody’s doing their best to make that race, at least we got to run at the end.”

Hamlin, who led late but gave the lead up during the frenzied final sequences of pit stops, said he never got a feel for how good his car was because of the tire concerns.
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