Allstate 400 called the worst race in the history of the sport

When talking about the worst races in the last 50 years of NASCAR you're going to have to put the 2008 Allstate 400 at the Brickyard in the conversation. Bet Allstate's glad they sponsored this one — though, in truth, Allstate's about the only monolithic corporate entity that escaped brutal criticism this weekend.

If you missed this race, go hit yourself in the head with a hammer. (Gently.) There, now you've gotten the same amount of pleasure that the rest of us got out of this race.

Rather than screaming about how we're done with NASCAR — really, we promise, we're not kidding this time — fans should be paying extremely close attention to what NASCAR and Goodyear do in response to this mess. If they get proactive and start projecting out possible problems like this weeks or months in advance, if they mandate testing and tweaks to the Car of Tomorrow to accommodate different tracks, if they stand up and admit that this just wasn't acceptable competition for a major American sport, then they'll blunt a lot of the criticism. If they do nothing, if they get secretive, if they blame the fans for not appreciating linked-sprints-as-racing, NASCAR's going to continue shedding both prestige and fans. Just like the rubber Sunday. Yahoo! Sports