Dale Earnhardt Jr. spoke out against testing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedyway. Getty Images

MOORESVILLE, N.C. -- A week that began with NASCAR apologizing for the embarrassing tire situation at the Brickyard, ended in similar fashion as Pocono winner Carl Edwards apologized for fighting with crew chief Bob Osborne over pit strategy in Sunday's Sprint Cup race. In other words, just another week at the races.

But there's another person who has a little apologizing to do. And it's none other that Dale Earnhardt Jr., himself.

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, Earnhardt 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."

Hey, Dale, ever heard of the Indianapolis 500? They've been holding that race ever since 1911, so you might have heard about it. Then again, it's not a NASCAR race, so you probably haven't.

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 surface has produced some incredibly competitive Indy 500s during that time and NASCAR has now competed on that same surface in four Brickyard 400s.

Earnhardt said he was in favor of "not testing" at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway this year. "Pocono is a tough, tough race track to get a hold of, more so than Indy," he said. "That's why we picked it to test instead of Indianapolis. It's not that the teams didn't want to test there. There were more important places to go."

Well, Dale, an open test could have given NASCAR and Goodyear officials information that may have prevented the tire situation that developed at the Brickyard this year.

There is no denying that NASCAR is the most popular form of racing in the United States with loyal fans and strong corporate support. But this is yet another example of how some Cup drivers don't have respect for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and what it means to auto racing.

It's enough to make Indy legends Ray Harroun, Bill Vukovich and Wilbur Shaw roll over in their graves.

Goodyear's Comeback

Pat on the back for Goodyear, which redeemed itself last weekend. As rain started falling during the Nationwide Series race in Montreal, Goodyear officials brought out rain tires that they had been carting around for the last six or so years. Because Circuit Gilles Villeneuve is a road course, NASCAR officials allowed the use of those tires, and what followed was a highly entertaining, if rain-shortened, race, won by Canadian driver Ron Fellows. It was the first time a NASCAR race had been conducted with rain tires.

"We felt the race probably came off as good as it could have," said Robin Pemberton, vice president of competition for NASCAR. "In hindsight, there might have been one or two little things we could have done different. But we have no experience at running races like that."

Pemberton said standing water, not the tires, caused most of the problems. "When it was [just] wet, everybody's deal went fine, competitors and our stuff alike," he said. "I think it was just making sure that the standing water was gone. There were some areas that the drainage didn't keep up with the precipitation."

The drivers in the race, however, had a blast splashing in the rain. One of the lasting images was Carl Edwards driving around the track with a Squeegee in his left hand as he tried to wipe rain off the windshield

"It was a lot of fun," Greg Biffle said after swimming to an eighth-place finish. "I'm glad I made history."