Brickyard 400 takeaways: NASCAR's return to Indianapolis oval was a test of strength (2024)

INDIANAPOLIS — Five thoughts after Sunday’s Brickyard 400 NASCAR race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway …

1. Taking Stock

Before the return of the Brickyard 400, Indianapolis Motor Speedway posted a statistic that underscored the elite level of this race: More than 81 percent of Brickyard winners were a present or future NASCAR Cup Series champion.

After Sunday, make that 82 percent.

Kyle Larson, the 2021 Cup champ, added his name to Brickyard 400 lore on the return of the crown-jewel race after its three-year absence from the NASCAR schedule in favor of the Indianapolis infield road course.

While those three years on the road course produced worthy winners, they were three of the best road racers — AJ Allmendinger, Michael McDowell and Tyler Reddick — and each of whom had exactly one career Cup victory at the time of their Indianapolis triumph.

But the oval winners? Well, they’re some of the best drivers in NASCAR history, period.

Earnhardt. Johnson. Gordon. Stewart. Harvick. Busch. The list goes on and on. After Sunday, 12 of the 16 different drivers who have won this race are either current or no-doubt-future NASCAR Hall of Famers.

This is a race of the greats, in part because the history and prestige of Indianapolis brings the best out of everyone. Just look at Saturday’s qualifying session, when the top five in points took the top five starting spots for the race.

No, drivers couldn’t do much passing in the Next Gen car. But previous generations struggled to put on any sort of a show on Indy’s giant, one-groove rectangular layout as well. Only circ*mstances allowed Larson to make moves from 23rd place (he was going full speed with no fuel concerns while others ahead of him were trying to conserve their gas).

But the argument here is the entertainment value of the Brickyard doesn’t matter. While that’s not a great selling point, this is the purest test of strength we’ll get to see all season — even more than the championship race at Phoenix.

Speaking of which, the question now is whether Larson and the No. 5 team can fulfill the second part of a remarkable Brickyard stat: One third of the time (nine of 27 years), the Brickyard winner has gone on to win that season’s Cup Series championship.

Is Larson next?

“I’ve always felt like the best teams rise to this occasion as a whole,” said five-time Brickyard winner Jeff Gordon, now vice chairman at Hendrick Motorsports. “The 5 team is very, very strong, one of the best teams out there obviously. Now having this win under their belt, it’s really going to set the tone for the rest of the season of who’s the biggest threat for the championship.

“I know this is not Phoenix, but it’s about momentum, confidence, being able to step up in the biggest moments. Today was one of those big moments for this team — for everybody out here today.”

2. Fastest Car Tracker

Next year, we might need a new category for some races with the Fastest Car Tracker: “Not applicable.”

Similar to a superspeedway race, the Brickyard wasn’t necessarily about who had the fastest car. It was about who played the strategy correctly to have the track position at the right time, which is different than the fastest car on outright speed.

The top 11 drivers in the “Green Flag Speed” category of NASCAR’s Loop Data all finished 25th or worse — partly because many were involved in crashes before the pace slowed down and everyone started saving fuel. Meanwhile, John Hunter Nemechek had the highest number of fastest laps run (18, to Larson’s 15), which occurred when he was leading in clean air on an alternate strategy.

It seemed like Reddick might have had the fastest car (he won the pole and was fast in practice), so we asked him. But he said he didn’t know, because he never really got the chance to see it in action based on his team’s strategy.

How about Larson, then? He thought through the question and cited Nemechek (“Must have been fast because he drove off a long ways when he got the lead”), but ultimately wasn’t sure, either.

“I think my car was really good, but I just don’t know,” Larson said. “I never got to be out in the lead, really. As of right now, I don’t know who had the fastest car. I think we definitely had a first- or probably second-place car.”

In that case, given the spirit of what we’ve been trying to track here, we’ll just say it was Larson. He wasn’t a fluke winner and also passed Reddick when they were on the same strategy late in the race.

Fastest Car Score: Other Cars 13, Fastest Cars 11.

Fastest Cars by Driver: Christopher Bell 5, Denny Hamlin 4, Kyle Larson 4, Tyler Reddick 2, William Byron 2, Joey Logano 2, Michael McDowell 1, Martin Truex Jr. 1, Todd Gilliland 1, Ty Gibbs 1, Shane van Gisbergen 1.

3. Q&A

Each week in this space, we’ll pose one question and attempt to answer one from the past.

Q: What would happen if there were team orders in NASCAR?

During Sunday’s Formula 1 race in Hungary, McLaren driver Oscar Piastri was leading and in control of the race until the team undercut him by pitting teammate Lando Norris first. Norris then had a five-second lead and was asked to give up the position so Piastri could win the race instead (which Norris ultimately did after some hesitation).

This sort of thing has happened in F1 over the years, but the team orders on Sunday were made even more intriguing by the drivers’ position in the point standings; Norris is second in the championship and perhaps the only one capable of catching a suddenly vulnerable Max Verstappen, while Piastri is a distant fifth.

The F1 world may not love it, but such things are largely accepted there nonetheless. In his analysis of the race, our Luke Smith wrote “the resolution and the race result were fair.”

This is a difficult thought exercise because it’s so extremely unlikely, but just imagine if such a situation occurred in NASCAR. Let’s say Hendrick asked Chase Elliott to move aside for William Byron because Byron was the one who had dominated the race and deserved to win it, even though he was no longer in the lead based on the team’s own strategy.

For one thing, NASCAR itself would probably react harshly. Officials might view that as race manipulation or a violation of the “100 percent” rule, even though that has been rarely enforced. There could be a points penalty or even a stripping of playoff points if a team ordered one of its drivers to cede a position for another — whether the winner was deserving or not.

Second, the fan base would absolutely riot. The meltdown of anger on social media would be so severe, the team would be disincentivized to even think of ever doing it again, and it would dominate the conversation for weeks.

Remember, Michael Waltrip Racing essentially went out of business due to the infamous “Spingate” at Richmond — part of which involved pitting a teammate in order to give up a position for points.

Team orders have become acceptable enough in F1 to pass as “team strategy,” but ultimately they’re a race manipulation tactic that would never be tolerated in NASCAR.

A: How will Kyle Larson fare in the Indianapolis 500?

That was last year’s question in this column following the road course race at Indianapolis, for two reasons: Larson had just unveiled his paint schemes for what ultimately turned out to be his ill-fated Double attempt, and the next time he would return to Indy in a competitive environment would be the Indy 500.

Of course, you already know how his Indy 500 went by now. Larson qualified fifth and seemed headed toward a top-10 finish (or better), but he sped on pit road during his first green-flag pit stop in an IndyCar and finished 18th instead.

Larson then missed the Coca-Cola 600 due to the rain-delayed 500, and never got to run the second half of the paint schemes he unveiled a year ago at the Brickyard — a Hendrick car with tinges of McLaren papaya orange.

But Hendrick decided to bring that design back for Sunday’s race and give it another go. And that created what Larson described as “completing the circle of the Double this year.”

What about next year? With the adrenaline surging in his finish-line interview, Larson whipped up the crowd by asking fans if they wanted to see him make a return next May. By the time he eventually made it to the media center, though, Larson acknowledged the discussions are still in the preliminary stage.

“It sounds good so far, but things could change,” he said. “We’ll see. Everybody knows I would love to do it because in my mind I did not get to do (the Double) this year.

“I hope the pieces can fall into place and we can hopefully get things put together and announce something.”

Similarly, and perhaps more telling, team owner Rick Hendrick also indicated a decision had not been made (“Not yet,” he said). One would assume the waiver controversy left a bad taste in everyone’s mouths, and no one at Hendrick wants to go through that again — especially since there’s a chance NASCAR might rule differently next time if it rained again.

“I think if we had blown the race off completely, probably wouldn’t have gotten the waiver,” Hendrick said.

So the question remains how Larson would do with a second chance at the 500, assuming he gets the opportunity at all.

4. NASquirks

The Olympics have necessitated NASCAR take an upcoming two-week break in deference to TV partner NBC Sports, and it’s also one of the most welcome developments imaginable for the tired garage.

Fans tend to roll their eyes whenever someone in the NASCAR industry speaks about the grind of the schedule, and sometimes there can be outright backlash if such comments come across as complaints. It’s a combination of “This is what you signed up for” and “Try getting a real job instead of getting to work a racetrack.”

That may be true, but it also discounts the toll of the longest season in sports. And this year, that has included a run of 23 straight races (from the Daytona 500 until now) without an off weekend.

There was a proposal floated to have a true summer shutdown, as F1 does each year, but not all teams were on board and some had different philosophies as to when their employees would take time off. For the most part, though, crew members will get a nice chunk of rest before resuming the final 14 races of the year (four regular-season races remain, followed by the 10-race playoffs).

“I know I need it, so I’m sure as hell those (road) guys need it,” Blaney said. “It’ll be good for everyone to recharge the batteries a little bit.”

Though it might be tempting to continue working during the two-week break — lest a team might fall behind if other organizations are trying to find speed — Team Penske is one of those looking at the bigger picture of taking care of people over results. Jefferson Hodges, Penske’s NASCAR team manager, said the road crew will get most of the break off until the week of the next race at Richmond.

“I think it’s more important they get recharged and they come to Richmond excited about where they work as opposed to knowing a lot of their competitors got this break and got to go on vacations with their family while they didn’t,” Hodges said. “We’ll get a lot more out of them that way.”

5. Five at No. 5

Our mini power rankings after Race No. 24/38 (including exhibitions):

1. Tyler Reddick (last week: 2): Many people would expect to see Larson here, but Reddick has finished eighth or better in eight of the last nine weeks and could have easily won three of the four races. He is consistently fast right now and getting the results to go with it.

2. Ryan Blaney (last week: 1): If Blaney controls the overtime restart instead of Larson, thanks to Brad Keselowski pulling off the track late, suddenly we could be talking about back-to-back Blaney wins heading into the break. It’s been a heck of a two-month stretch for the No. 12 team.

3. Kyle Larson (last week: 4): Larson has the speed to win races and the championship. The problem lately is, as he put it, too much of “2023 Kyle Larson again — either running good or crashing.”

4. Denny Hamlin (last week: 3): This race was earmarked as the maximum effort from the No. 11 team, and they brought a fast enough car. The strategy just didn’t play out in their favor, and then Hamlin got taken out in a crash to cap it off.

5. Chase Elliott (last week: not ranked): What might have been for the No. 9 team if not for costly penalties at Pocono and Indy? Elliott’s cars looked terrific these last couple weeks, which bodes well for the regular-season championship battle.

Dropped out: Christopher Bell.

(Top photo of Kyle Larson celebrating Sunday’s win: James Gilbert / Getty Images)