Friday Brickyard 400 Notebook

By David Morgan, Associate Editor

SPEEDWAY, Ind. – NASCAR is back on the oval at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and all seems right with the world again.

After a three-year experiment of running the Indianapolis road course that combines part of the oval and part of the infield road course that winds through the 2.5-mile circuit, the decision was made that when NASCAR returned in 2024, it would be back on the oval.

And just in time for the 30^th anniversary of the inaugural Brickyard 400 in 1994.

Drivers got their first laps in a Next Gen car on the Indianapolis oval during a 50-minute practice session on Friday afternoon, with the majority opinion being that the oval is where NASCAR needs to be to restore the prestigiousness of this event.

“It’s a return of a crown jewel race, which is great,” said Brad Keselowski, one of only two drivers in the field to have won previously on the oval.

“I don’t think anyone really considered the road course a crown jewel race, so it kind of returns back to that status. I think that’s huge for our sport and it means a lot to me as a driver and I’m assuming it does for the other drivers as well. So, a welcome return.

“It’s not going to be an easy race. I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of drama on pit road and with respect to how the cars will draft and how they’ll run nose to tail around the track and all those pieces, and we’re still going to go back to some of those headaches, but I think we kind of learned that that’s not necessarily a bad thing. That’s part of what made Indy, Indy, right?

“And so it’ll be interesting to see how that plays out with tires and all those things along the line, but I think it’s very meaningful to me to see it back on the, I guess you call this oval a quad-oval — is it a quad-oval? I don’t know what it’s called. Rectangle? Rectangle. So it’s good to see it back.

“For me, winning this race and having your name on that crown jewel list, it’s a really special feeling. It’s kind of a dream come true. It really sank in the best, I think, two years ago when we took the picture with all the drivers that have won here and you just think about how there’s no slouches on that list, right? It’s a lot of champions and the track just has a history for that of the people that win here with very few exceptions are our champions and it feels good to be on that list.”

Chasing A Major

Denny Hamlin has gone through his entire NASCAR Cup Series career picking up wins in the majors (Daytona 500, Coca-Cola 600, Southern 500) like Thanos out hunting for Infinity Stones.

However, one still eludes him – Indianapolis.

“I don’t have that many chances left. It’s less than what’s on my hand, I would think,” Hamlin said. “So, I mean, you just gotta take every chance and advantage of every opportunity. 2020 was an enormous opportunity. 2018 was a very underrated opportunity. Brad caught a caution there that really just was untimely for us. But overall, I feel like I’ve always been in contention here, just never, never gotten it done.”

Hamlin added that should he finally be able to complete his Infinity Gauntlet of NASCAR majors, it would mean the world to not only him, but also his entire crew – especially crew chief Chris Gabehart, who has been right alongside Hamlin experiencing the same heartbreak of not winning at Indianapolis.

“Certainly from my standpoint, you know, I know that there’s not but so many more opportunities I’ll have here at the oval. So, it’s a big emphasis because it’s a gaping hole in the resume. It would complete all the majors.

“But Chris in generally wants it pretty bad too. And he’s a little, you know, butt hurt over 2020 and how that ended. So I think, without a doubt we knew going in this weekend that he had spent extra time on this car making sure that all the details were looked after and he brought me the fastest car he could.”

Tempering Expectations

When it comes to the return to the oval, excitement is rampant throughout the industry, but as for the on-track product that this race will produce, a number of drivers warned that it may be a rough watch due to the aero needs of the Next Gen car and the limited track space that Indianapolis provides.

“We don’t want to paint a gloomy picture by any means, but it’s certainly gonna be a different type of race,” Hamlin said. “It’s gonna be, you know, strategy and fuel and things like that. It’s just not gonna be…I do think there’s potential resources to be somewhat crazy, but once we single file out, I think that that’s where it will stand for quite a while.

“It’s just different back in the day because when we had the old car, when you got close to someone, it was like the Xfinity car where it would give the leader a disadvantage when you got close to ’em. Now in this car, you get closer and you just get a bigger and bigger disadvantage. So, that’s what will make it tough to pass.

“We’ve said it for years. The Next Gen car does not like one lane racetracks. So, short of putting PJ1 resin up at the top lane, which there’s no way they’ll touch this surface, it’s just not gonna happen.”

Tyler Reddick, who was fastest in practice on Friday, said much of the same.

“It’s gonna be tricky,” Reddick said. “I think, you know, discipline and not putting yourself in a bad spot will be important. I think it’ll be really easy to make a mistake and lose a lot of momentum or cause an accident. So, just have to keep our eyes out for that.”

Penske Perfect

When it comes to racing at Indianapolis, especially on the oval, the drivers in the Team Penske camp carry in some extra weight to get the job done at the track owned by their team owner Roger Penske.

From NASCAR to IndyCar, the Penske name is synonymous with perfection and the three Penske drivers in the field on Sunday know what they need to do to get the job done for the boss.

“We want to win. We want to win more, sure, absolutely,” said Joey Logano. “It’s been like that every time you come here, you want to win, but when Roger owns it, obviously he wants to see the success of his cars on this racetrack. He doesn’t specifically call us and say, hey, you’re coming to our track, you need to make sure you win and run well. But it doesn’t have to be said to know that all of our partners are here.

“This is a big race for Team Penske. All of our race car partners are partners with the racetrack most likely one way or another. It is one of the crown jewel events of the year. So yeah, it’s a little extra there.”

Defending Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney echoed the comments of his teammate, going a step further to note that should the win the day on Sunday, they’ll be able to provide their owner a clean sweep at Indianapolis following Josef Newgarden’s win in the Indianapolis 500 back in May.

“We know how special this place is,” said Blaney. “It’s not even talked about in our camp. You just know. You know what it means. It’s meant the world ever since I even got there in 2012 before he owned the racetrack and now especially, it’s doubled and we have a unique opportunity to sweep Indy this year with Josef winning the 500 and us coming here and having a good shot hopefully on the NASCAR side.

“A cool opportunity to do something really special and that’s what you want to do for RP. You just want to make memories and you want to do well by his race team and well by him. So yeah, big weekend, a lot of pressure on this weekend for us, but this race team loves pressure.”

Should Blaney be able to capture the checkered flag, he’s already got a plan for handling the post-race celebration of kissing the bricks.

“Kissing the bricks is like a dream come true,” Blaney added. “I mean, ask anybody, that’s what they want to do. I’m gonna lick the bricks if I win, that’s for sure. It’s gonna be nasty, but it’s gonna happen.

“But I think that’s just what everyone wants to do. They’ve seen it growing up on TV for however long they’ve been watching racing and IndyCar in general. I don’t know when they started kissing the bricks, but to be able to do that with [Roger Penske], that would be like the coolest moment in my life.”

Pocono Payoff?

If there are two tracks that seem to relate to each other on the schedule, Pocono and Indianapolis are on that list. Every year, it seems that whoever runs well at Pocono can usually carry that to Indianapolis with the same level of performance.

This year, we’ll have a direct transfer with Pocono and Indianapolis running in back-to-back weeks and no one would like to see the same outcome than Pocono winner Ryan Blaney.

“I hope it translates a lot,” Blaney said. “You know, I feel like there’s some things from Pocono you can take away, like Turn 3 to me, mainly at Pocono relates to here. It’s flat. This place is a little bit smoother than Turn 3 at Pocono, but I do feel like big track, two-and-a-half-mile race track, like trying to get your car to be good at high speeds, flat corners, like turn three at Pocono, I think you can carry over some things.

“We’ve carried over some stuff from Pocono, we thought worked and tried some stuff that we thought would make us even better. So, you just hope all that stuff translates. You never know. I mean, you never know who’s gonna hit it any given weekend, but you feel confident in where our speed was last week. And like I said, hopefully it applies.”

Blaney’s Team Penske teammate Austin Cindric concurred with Blaney’s assessment and even though he finished 18^th at Pocono, explained that it was a good warm-up race before heading to Indianapolis.

“Between Pocono and Indy, I’d say they’re the two most similar to each other,” Cindric said. “Even from a car setup standpoint, how you have to drive them and how fast they are, kind of what you do with the car. Even from a strategy standpoint, the races are fairly similar.

“Last week was a good warm-up.”