Earnhardt eats his words

In the wake of the Allstate 400 at Indy, where Goodyear's tires were so bad that the longest green-flag run was 12 laps, Dale Earnhardt Jr. had this to say last week: "I'll tell you this. Tony George [owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway] said that they weren't changing the track and I don't blame them. It's expensive to pave the track. But diamond-grinding the race track with the grooves does directly have an effect on tire wear. Directly. And anyone who wants to say otherwise is just in denial. All right? So, with that said, obviously I wouldn't expect [Tony] to repave the race track, even though they did diamond-grind it for no good reason."

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway was repaved in 2004, and when the track was actually too slick and too smooth following the repaving, IMS officials diamond-ground the surface before the 2005 Indianapolis 500. The diamond ground surface has produced some incredibly competitive Indy 500s during that time and NASCAR has now competed on that same surface in four Brickyard 400s.

Then again Earnhardt Jr., born in the deep south, probably never heard of the Indianapolis 500. They've been holding that race ever since 1911, so he might have heard about it. Then again, it's not a NASCAR race, so it probably wasn't taught in the school he went to.