<P> 2005: Hometown favorite Tony Stewart won his first race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and climbed the catch fence to celebrate, in the same fashion as Hélio Castroneves . </P> <P> 2006: After suffering a blown front left tire early in the race that caused some fender damage, Jimmie Johnson passed Dale Earnhardt Jr. with six laps left to win at Indy for the first time, and became only the second driver to win both the Daytona 500, and Brickyard 400 in the same year . The other was Dale Jarrett in 1996 . </P> <P> 2007: Juan Pablo Montoya became the first (and, to date, only) driver to race in all three of the major events hosted by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (Indy 500, Brickyard 400, and the U.S.G.P.). Montoya, a rookie in the NASCAR Cup Series, finished second to Tony Stewart . Stewart's 2007 winning car is owned and on rotating display at the Speedway museum . </P> <P> 2008: The Car of Tomorrow was used at Indy for the first time . The Goodyear tires suffered bad wear patterns, causing blowouts in some cases after only ten laps of green - flag racing . Lengthy competition cautions were put out at roughly 10 - lap intervals for teams to change tires, which caused controversy and angered fans and media . Jimmie Johnson managed to tame the tire problems by winning for the second time in his career at Indy, holding off a mild challenge from Carl Edwards . </P>

Big machine vodka 400 at the brickyard race weekend