OBSERVATIONS Rick Minter's

Tony Stewart: defending champ at Indianapolis.

Here are some key storylines as the Cup Series heads to Indy: High expectations at Indianapolis

Many insiders in the Nextel Cup garage are expecting Tony Stewart and his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin to be among the prime contenders in Sunday's Allstate 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Stewart, an Indiana native and the defending winner of the race, typically runs well at his home track, and his crew was especially pleased with the performance of the No. 20 Chevrolet in a recent test session at Indy.

Hamlin is a contender simply because he swept both races this year at Pocono Raceway, a track that requires similar handling and set-up characteristics as Indy. And he'll be racing the same car he used in both Pocono races.

But Hamlin told reporters after his victory at Pocono that he wasn't sure about that, especially since he didn't feel like his Indy test was a huge success.

NASCAR

Tony Stewart: defending

champ at Indianapolis.

"I felt like going into the test that we were going to be really fast, but I seemed to struggle when I was there," he said. "Don't know exactly what we were fighting. Just overall grip really."

But he acknowledged that test results often aren't the best indicator of speed in the race.

"That's kind of been the trend of all the Gibbs cars over the testing throughout the year," he said. "Every time we go to test, we're not all that good.We come back to race, we're really good."

At the pump

NASCAR's first full-race test of unleaded fuel appears to have been a success. Saturday's Busch Series Silver Celebration 250 at Gateway International Raceway was the first race in which all cars ran on unleaded fuel. From all indications, the race was no different from others run with leaded fuel, which is preferred by engine builders because it offers better lubrication for internal engine parts.

Denny Hamlin's pole-winning speed of 134.852 mph was just a tick or two of the stopwatch off the track record of 135.021 mph set last year by Martin Truex Jr., and there appeared to be no engine problems related to the fuel. In fact, there were only two caution periods for 11 laps and both were for crashes. Carl Edwards was the winner.

NASCAR plans to continue phasing in unleaded fuel in all of its top series, including Nextel Cup.

Diversity success

NASCAR's increasing diversity is evident in the backgrounds of two drivers new to the sanctioning body's top two divisions.

Shane Huffman followed what once was the primary route to NASCAR's elite divisions. A longtime short-track racer from Hickory, N.C., Huffman worked his way up the shorttrack ladder to the Hooters Pro Cup Series, where he was discovered by his car owner, Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Huffman made his Busch Series debut at Gateway International Raceway on Saturday. It was the first of four races he'll run this season for Earnhardt Jr.'s JR Motorsports.

The second face new to NASCAR is yet another sign that the sport once dominated by drivers born and raised in the Southeast has taken on an international flavor.

Max Papis, a veteran road racer from Como, Italy, will attempt to qualify for the Aug. 13 Nextel Cup race at Watkins Glen. He's the second international driver in recent weeks - Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya is the first - to announce plans to race in NASCAR.

Eye for talent

James Finch, the outspoken Nextel Cup and Busch Series car owner from Panama City, Fla., seems to have a trained eye for driving talent. Early in his career, he teamed up with Jeff Purvis and found success in dirt racing and ARCA superspeedway racing before both moved to NASCAR.

Recently, Finch plucked Cale Gale, a Late Model driver from Mobile, Ala., from the short-track ranks, put him to work with his Busch and Cup teams as a shock specialist and began entering him in select Busch and ARCA races.

In last week's Shop 'n Save 150 ARCA race at Gateway International Raceway, Finch's gamble paid off as Gale, who was named for NASCAR legend Cale Yarborough, drove like Yarborough in winning the race in just his second career ARCA start.

And he had to hold on through multiple, late-race restarts that extended the race by 22 laps to seal the victory. "You get to thinking after this restart, and then this one, and this one; you just get a little anxious," Gale told reporters in Victory Lane.