Sprint Cup N's & Q's: Brickyard 400

Rewinding from a successful tire test Allstate 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway could only mean one thing: it's time again for Sprint Cup Notes & Quotes.

If this were any other track, I'd have a huge problem with how the racing turned out Sunday. It's obvious that track position and clean air were the trump cards in a deck otherwise full of jokers -- but don't forget that Indianapolis has nearly always been like that.

Some may term it boring, and it definitely lacked excitement for much of the day thanks to the good work of so many drivers to not make mistakes and hit each other or the wall, but come on, that's what your going to get at this flat track.

And before you say this track only puts on a good show for IndyCars, think back to the Indianapolis 500 in May. Not a single pass for the lead came during green flag conditions and dominant cars like Scott Dixon and Dario Franchitti couldn't make up a lick of ground after pit troubles during the last stop.

As much as fans don't get to see it, Indianapolis is a track that truly takes a complete team effort throughout the weekend to win because otherwise you just simply won't be in position at the end to make a run at the checkers.

The pit road luck that Chip Ganassi has had at Indianapolis in 2009 has literally cost the owner two wins at the 2.5-mile track.

As I mentioned, in May, Dixon and Franchitti were dominating the 500 until the last pit stop saw a myriad of problems for both cars and dropped them in the field. Together, they led 123 laps of the 200-lap event before falling to sixth and seventh, respectively, in the final finishing order.

Sunday, of course, Montoya paced the field for some 116 laps before a speeding penalty knocked him out of contention.

Mark Martin may have not caught and passed Jimmie Johnson for the win in Sunday's race, but the No. 5 in the mirror of the No. 48 left the defending champion a little uneasy about not screwing up and giving the race away to the 50-year-old Martin.

"An old guy has never made me so [expletive deleted] nervous in my life," said Johnson shortly after crossing the finish line over the team radio.

Speaking of Johnson, his fan support is perplexing -- even to Chris, a friend of mine who saw his first NASCAR race Sunday after being a closet television fan for years.

"How does Jimmie not have more fans?" he asked me of the three-time Brickyard champ. "All he does is be nice to everyone, bleed class and beat the [daylights] out of everyone."

I literally had no answer. How does the most dominating driver NASCAR might ever see in such a prolonged span not have a bigger fan base?

IMS announced Monday that Allstate Insurance Co. would no longer be the flagship brand of the NASCAR event at the track after it opted not to continue sponsorship of the 400-mile race.

According to the press release, it's obviously got something to do with the faltering economy, but the most interesting note about the split after five years is that the track isn't going to actively search for another race sponsor.

In what appears to be an early indicator of the dropped sponsorship, Allstate didn't purchase broadcast rights to the race from ABC/ESPN meaning the presenting network termed the race the "Brickyard 400 presented by Golden Corral".

I, for one, am plenty happy to hear that news because I felt that adding a sponsorship title did two things to NASCAR's visit to Indianapolis: 1) It cheapened the value of the race to competitors and fans because the corporate name aligned it with nearly every other race on the Sprint Cup schedule not named the Daytona 500 and 2) It added money to the coffers of IMS that has likely paid for some nice track and facility improvements.

So was Allstate's run all bad? Certainly not.

But it's nice knowing that we can simply call it the Brickyard 400 once again -- as it should have stayed all along -- because let's be real, Indy needs to be on par with the Daytona 500 and not with an insert-corporate-name-here 500.

It's not a big difference, but it sure feels like it.