INDIANAPOLIS - Lasy year Indianapolis was the start of Jimmie Johnson's season demise.

This season, Indy could be the jump start Johnson needs heading into the "Chase for the NEXTEL Cup."

Johnson battled back from early race tire problems to win Sunday's NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series Allstate 400 at the Brickyard at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Johnson suffered a flat left front tire early in Sunday's 13th Brickyard, but was able to work his way back to the front of the field and put himself in position to win.

Johnson's season now includes wins in NASCAR's two biggest races - the Daytona 500 and the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard.

Elliott Sadler's dismal season continued Sunday when he hit the wall and was knocked out on only the fourth lap of the race.

"I got really loose in front of the 01 car getting into turn two, and kind of took the air off our spoiler, and just lost it," Sadler said. It's a shame, it's 100 percent our fault. I'm going to take total blame."

Daytona darling Boris Said, who won the pole for July's Pepsi 400 and came close to winning the race, had a rough day Sunday when he was tagged by Reed Sorenson on lap 21 and found the wall.

"It's just one of those racing deals where he was doing his deal and I was doing my deal and our deals ended up colliding, so it's a bad day for me," Said explained.

yeah, that was a good race to watch. sad that Jeff Gordon only finished in 16 and Smoke finished 8th so i guess i can't complain too much, seeing that both of them had to come from the back to finish where they did.