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Jamie McMurray's crew gave him only two tires on his final pit stop, but that turned out to be the key to victory in the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday.McMurray was able to use his outside position to get past leader Kevin Harvick on the final restart with just a few laps to go.
"It's unbelievable," McMurray said in victory lane. "We didn't have the best car. But we made the right call with two tires. It's unreal right now. It was a really good day."
Harvick was second, followed by Greg Biffle, Clint Bowyer and Tony Stewart. Jeff Burton was sixth, followed by Carl Edwards, Kyle Busch, Joey Logano and Kurt Busch.
The victory gave the Daytona 500 winner his first victory in NASCAR's biggest race of the summer, and gave car owner Chip Ganassi an unprecedented triple crown, with victories in the Daytona 500, the Indy 500 and now the Brickyard 400 in 2010. Ganassi is the first car owner to win both of Indy's big races in the same year.
"How about Chip winning the 500 and both of them?" McMurray said.
As McMurray was celebrating, his teammate, Juan Pablo Montoya, was heartbroken. After again dominating the 400 and leading the most laps, Montoya's crew chief, Brian Pattie, called for four tires on the final round of pit stops on a yellow flag with about 20 laps to go. Six other cars took only two tires, including McMurray, who emerged from the pits in the lead.
But while Biffle was able to move up, Montoya actually lost ground after the restart and soon crashed out of the event, taking Dale Earnhardt Jr. with him.
"My heart goes out to Juan," McMurray said. "He had a great day, too."
Moments before that crash, Harvick had battled his way around McMurray to take the lead. But Montoya's crash set up another restart, and McMurray was able to use the outside lane to power around Harvick and take command.
Both McMurray and Harvick had taken two tires in the final stop, but when Biffle got up to them, he couldn't get past, despite the expected advantage of his four tires."I think two tires would have been the right call," Biffle said afterwards. "Two tires probably would have put us up front and we could have duked it out for the win."
Montoya's crew chief, Brian Pattie, surely agreed, too, although without the benefit of hindsight, the common wisdom for a flat track like Indy would be four tires.
But who can predict how any one race will play out?
Just before the green flag came out with 18 laps to go after that final round of pit stops, Montoya was philosophical on his radio as he prepared to restart the event back in seventh. "Well, we'll see in about 15 or 20 minutes who made the right call," he said.
Fifteen minutes later, he was out of it, huddled in his transporter and not talking to the media.
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