CHARLOTTE, NC. – For the first time since 2020—and the first time ever in the Gen 7 race car—the NASCAR Cup Series will race on the historic 2.5-mile oval track at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
The return to the oval marks the 30th anniversary of the Brickyard 400, which immediately acquired status as one of NASCAR’s Crown Jewel races on its debut in 1994.
Jeff Gordon won the inaugural event. Denny Hamlin, who stopped a five-race skid last week with a runner-up finish at Pocono Raceway, hopes to add another marquee victory to his resume in Sunday’s 28th running of the event (2:30 p.m. ET on NBC, IMS Network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Hamlin already has scored victories in three of NASCAR’s Crown Jewel events, the Daytona 500, Coca-Cola 600 and Southern 500. With a win on Sunday, he would complete the racing equivalent of a Grand Slam, a feat accomplished only by NASCAR Hall of Famers Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson (who will race Sunday), Kevin Harvick and Dale Earnhardt Sr.
If Hamlin is eager to win on the Indianapolis oval, so is his crew chief, Chris Gabehart, who grew up in Lafayette, Indiana, and earned a mechanical engineer degree from Purdue University.
To win at Indianapolis, Hamlin knows he’ll have to survive an intense fight for optimum position on the track.
“It’s going to be tough,” said Hamlin, who is tied for the series lead with three victories this season. “It’s going to be wild on restarts. I think you’ll have restarts very similar to Pocono, where guys are trying to fit in spots that are not there—and you’re talking about a track that is even narrower than what Pocono is.
“We all know being on the outside is not going to be preferred, so you’re going to want to be on the bottom. What’s going to happen is we’re going to go down these long straightaways and everyone is going to try to go three-wide bottom, and you’re probably going to see a lot of wrecks late if there are restarts to bunch us up.”
Hamlin, who represented the Toyota camp in a tire test on the Indy oval in June, is securely in the Playoffs this year. The same can’t be said of Mitchell, Indiana, native Chase Briscoe, or of Michael McDowell, who won last year’s race on the Indianapolis Grand Prix Course.
With five races left in the NASCAR Cup Series regular season and four Playoff spots still available, Briscoe is 75 points below the current Playoff cut line, likely needing a victory to qualify for the postseason.
After the announcement of Stewart-Haas Racing’s dissolution at the end of the season, Briscoe landed a job as the successor to Martin Truex Jr. at Joe Gibbs Racing next year. But Briscoe would love nothing better than to win at the Brickyard for SHR co-owner Tony Stewart, who preceded Briscoe in the No. 14 Ford.
“I’m excited. It’s cool,” Briscoe said. “Especially with how this year’s played out, with it being the last year for SHR… I was talking to Tony and told him it was pretty special that I’m going to get to run at least one Brickyard 400 in the 14 car. That means a lot to me personally, and even Tony—I don’t think it had hit him yet that it was going to be his last time as a car owner at Indy, at least for the time being.
“Yeah, it’s cool that we’re going back to the oval, with the history of that race. And as a Hoosier myself, I feel that there’s a little more emphasis on it… It’s obviously a Crown Jewel for all of us, but when you grow up in Indiana—and we’ve seen the Tony Stewarts and Ryan Newmans and how much different it is for those guys—it’s the same for me.”
With the move to the oval, McDowell won’t get a chance to defend his victory on the road course. Given that he’s 22nd in the Playoff standings and 152 points below the current cut line, McDowell will have to win one of the next five races to compete for the Cup championship.
“It’s funny—I have mixed emotions about it,” McDowell said of the return to the oval. “Obviously, winning there last year and having a fast car, you’d want to go back and race on the road course. I know it’s going to be hard for you to believe, but I’m glad we’re going back to the oval.
“As far as tradition and history—just the magnitude of the event—it’s different on the oval than it is on the road course. Now, do I wish it was a doubleheader, or we had another race to go back there and run the road course? For sure. But I’m actually excited to race back on the oval.”
Both Briscoe and McDowell drive Fords, and Ford drivers have won the last three races on the oval. Brad Keselowski’s victory in 2018 broke an 18-race drought for the car maker, dating to Dale Jarrett’s victory with Robert Yates Racing in 1999.
Source: Reid Spencer | NASCAR Wire Service
