Out of last pit first, Johnson wins Brickyard debacle

Pure and simple, Jimmie Johnson won the Yellow Flag 400 on Sunday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway by winning the final race off pit road.

In a race dominated by tire-wear issues and punctuated -- for safety's sake -- by the staccato insertion of frequent competition cautions, Johnson held off Carl Edwards in a furious seven-lap run to the finish to win his second Allstate 400 at the Brickyard, by .333 seconds.

Denny Hamlin, who was leading when NASCAR threw the final competition caution on Lap 150, finished third, followed by Elliott Sadler and Jeff Gordon.

After a two-tire call by crew chief Chad Knaus, Johnson was first out of the pits, with Edwards second, for the final restart on Lap 154. Edwards thought his car was fast enough to catch and pass the No. 48 Chevrolet, but he was wrong (watch video).

"Chad called the race perfectly, and we had a great stop at the end," said Johnson, who won his second race of the season and the 35th of his career. "Carl put about as much pressure on us as he could. I knew from chasing Denny the run before that, even if he was a little faster, he couldn't get by us."

Johnson, the second driver in 15 races at the Brickyard to win from the pole, took the first step toward the victory when he claimed the top starting spot in Saturday morning's qualifying session. That gave him first choice of pit stalls, and the No. 48 team chose the box closest to the exit of pit road.

"If Jimmie hadn't won the pole and had been pitting down at the other end, things might have been different. I've just got to qualify better," said Edwards, who started ninth. "That pit stall helped Jimmie a lot. If I was in front, I might have won.

"All race long, I thought I was better than he was, but he was holding back a lot more than I thought he was."

The combination of the new racecar and the Brickyard's abrasive racing surface produced abnormally high wear on right-side tires. Accordingly, NASCAR called competition cautions at intervals of approximately 11 laps, but the yellows weren't frequent enough to prevent calamity from befalling several of the sport's top stars. Of the 11 cautions in Sunday's race, six were competition cautions.

"As much as I didn't like it," Johnson said, "I've got to commend NASCAR for calling a safe race."