Brickyard 400 Coming Back
It’s the worst kept secret in racing right now. In 2024, NASCAR will be returning to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval and not the 2.439-mile road course layout. We’ve heard chatter about that for months now and quite honestly, the talk sped up even more recently with Goodyear announcing a tire test for next Monday around the 2.5-mile oval in anticipation of a return one day.
Denny Hamlin then came out this past weekend and told a group of reporters in Michigan about returning to the oval next season.
The 2024 season will mark 30 years since the inaugural race at Indy. The last three, counting this weekend, have occurred on the road course however. In saying that, the move was done to spice up the event again.
While most blame the 2008 tire debacle on the demise of the Brickyard 400, I was also quick to point out that the crowds were dwindling in the years prior too. That just gave everyone a new excuse.
See, the racing on the oval wasn’t great. We all knew that. This track wasn’t made for stock cars. Plus, with this race being run in extremely hot temperatures, the luster wore off and it became an event for diehards. The tire problem was just the nail in the coffin but the coffin was already being built.
As the year went along, the crowds diminished to less and less with most of this place being empty. So NASCAR adjusted. With a market for more road courses, that’s the direction that they went in.
The drivers felt like it lessened the importance of coming here. If you’re going to come to Indy, you should come to the oval. That’s what motorsports is all about. It cheapens the value by not doing so.
“I love the shared weekend. Look race car drivers like being around race car drivers. I like watching other divisions race I just don’t like racing on a road course,” said 3-time Brickyard 400 champion, Kevin Harvick. “I feel like it’s a parking lot track but doesn’t flow very well. It’s not a very it’s just not a very good course. I mean, it’s not Road America and it’s not Sonoma and it’s not Watkins Glen and it’s, you know, it’s just just not a good track.
“Running on the roval is embarrassing for our series.”
He would know. He won the last two Brickyard 400’s here.
What do others feel?
Christopher Bell put it bluntly. He likes the oval. It’s the history and prestige of it. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. says it doesn’t feel as much like a special event anymore.
“I mean, it doesn’t feel like it near as much as the oval does,” he says. “You know, I mean, it’s run on the ovals. I mean, just super historic. Right. And, you know, it’s the brickyard 400. So yeah, I mean, it’s it’s like Bristol, right like you want to win at Bristol, whether it’s dirt concrete and you want to win here at Indy whether it’s real course or oval, but the feel of it is not as is not the same.
“So yeah, I still enjoy it though. It’s still cool being here. At the same time you still get to kiss some bricks, right?”
Drivers say we should appreciate the prestige and importance of running at Indy on the oval and overlook the bad racing. I don’t disagree. It’s an event. A crown jewel. They all want to win here.
AJ Allmendinger is great here on the road course and said that even being the inaugural road course winner here last year, it was still special. Was it a Jeff Gordon or Ray Harroun moment? That’s up for debate but he also feels like if you want to run the oval again, fans need to show out.
You can’t come back and no one comes. The crowd was more of an embarrassment for the series on the oval than running on the road course. For a race that used to pack the place, the empty grandstands weren’t appealing.
NASCAR made it clear that they’re going to go to where they’re wanted. If fans don’t show, they won’t come. It has to look visually appealing as a big event.
The massive facility ate up the estimated 50k crowds in the final years of the oval. A similar crowd on the road course doesn’t look as bad and keeps Indy as a date on the NASCAR calendar.
By revolving the road course and oval as a rotating system, it could spice up the oval crowd. If you don’t show, you won’t see it for a few more years….
So, they’ll get their wish in 2024. A return.
Gragson Suspended
Noah Gragson made an immature mistake this past weekend by liking an insensitive post on Instagram. That got him not only suspended from Legacy Motor Club, but by NASCAR as well.
Gragson has had a dismal rookie season and sits 33rd in points. He missed a race at Sonoma for concussion like symptoms stemming from a crash a World Wide Technology Raceway. His best finish is 12th to where the other races he’s finished 20th or worse.
There’s even become chatter that he’d be let go by the team at seasons end after just one season and replaced by John Hunter Nemechek for 2024. Now with this move…
Truex Coming Back In 2024
To further the point above, Martin Truex Jr. subtly announced on Saturday morning that he just recently signed a contract on Friday night to come back to Joe Gibbs Racing in 2024. This slams the door shut of Nemechek’s aspirations of moving up with the team. He was also rumored to be the replacement for Truex is the veteran decided to retire.
Nemechek just won his 5th race of the 2023 Xfinity Series season on Saturday in Michigan and returning for another season in the series in 2024 does him really no good. He’s already 26 and has been to the Cup route before. This path was to get him a JGR seat and honestly, it’s worked. The problem is, there’s just no room now for next season.
Now that Truex is coming back, where does this leave Nemechek?
Possibly that No. 42 ride with LMC that oh by the way, moves to Toyota power next season anyhow. He could be stored there for a year or 2 before moving over to replace Truex whenever he decides to walk away.
For Truex, he knew over the last few weeks that he wanted to come back. He had the epiphany that why is he fighting it. So, he signed.
He has a great path to winning the regular season title this month and has had three wins this season alone. Why stop when he’s on top right now? He came back on a winless season a year ago. Why stop now?
His deal paves a path for his brother to get at least a part-time role with JGR in the Xfinity SEries again in 2024 too with possibly a full-time venture at that.
Elliott Facing a Must Win
Due to Chase Elliott’s crash early on at Michigan, he was credited with a 36th place finish. As a result of that, he drops from 40 points behind the cutline to 55 back with just three races remaining.
Elliott is taking it in stride though with saying that even when he came back from injury, he always expected to have to win anyhow. The problem is, he’s winless in his last 21 starts.
Indy is up next to where he’s winless. Then it’s to Watkins Glen to where he’s been great at. He won two of the last four years at The Glen with being runner-up (2021) and fourth (2022) in the others.
On road courses this season, Elliott didn’t race COTA this year but was fifth in Sonoma and third in Chicago this season.
This is his best hope for winning. Daytona isn’t a place that he wants to have to score his first career win there with playoff hopes riding on the line of it.
See, Hendrick Motorsports is tied with the Wood Brothers for most Daytona wins in the NASCAR Cup Series. Each have 15. Both have also won those 15 races with 7 different drivers. However, HMS’ once dominance prowess has since cooled. They won 11 races between 1995 and 2015. In fact, 7 of those 11 occurred from July 2004 and July 2015. They’ve won this race 6 times.
Since 2016 though, they have just one win. What’s bizarre is, it’s not like they’ve not shown up down here without speed. They’ve arguably had the fastest cars off the truck. It’s just that they’ve not had race day speed to correlate with race day handling. Hendrick Motorsports teammates Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott shared the front row of this race last year. It’s was actually the 4th straight HMS pole at Daytona and 12th in the last 16 tries on the high banked 2.5-mile Florida superspeedway. The only 4 poles they didn’t win was Greg Biffle (July 2016), Joey Logano (July 2019), Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (February 2020) and Kevin Harvick (Aug. 2020).
However, 2 of the 4 weren’t won on speed. Logano’s pole in 2019 was on points. Same for Harvick in 2020 as we didn’t qualify that year.
Still, HMS failed to win with having just 1 win in the last 15 Daytona races now and that’s counting February when they had another front row sweep. Elliott led the most laps (31) last year but none of them even scored a top 10.
Elliott was runner-up in the 2019 Coke Zero Sugar 400, runner-up in the 2020 Daytona 500, 8th in the 2021 ‘400 and 10th in the 2021 Daytona 500. While he won two superspeedway races last year, he was 38th, 12th and 13th this year.
RFK Racing Coming On Hot
Brad Keselowski said after Chris Buescher’s Richmond win that he felt like RFK Racing has moved from irrelevant to relevant. The next step was being contenders.
“I told somebody, a lot of you guys here this year, we moved from irrelevant to relevant. The next step is to try to be contenders,” he said then. “You get to the contender status by winning races.
“We’re not where we want to be. We want to be where we win every week, we’re 1-2 finishing. This is another step in our progression and a lot to be proud of.”
Now, after two straight wins though, how about now?
“We’re letting our results speak for themselves,” he said after Buescher’s win in Michigan on Monday. “Chris has done a heck of a job driving the car. When you get win, it feels really good.
“We got to keep some humbleness and keep our head down. There’s some great competition out here.
“Yeah, it’s been two great weekends. I’m just thrilled to death for our company. There’s a lot of people just working their guts out, trying to push, work within the limits of the rules and regulations, but not leave anything on the table, at the same time executing at the highest of levels, whether it be on pit road, restarts, whatever else it takes. I’m happy for them, their efforts getting them the results they deserve.”
Keselowski himself threw away a win in Richmond but still finished P6. He was P4 on Monday in Michigan giving RFK Racing four combined top six finishes in four opportunities the last two weeks now. Keselowski has four top sixes alone in his last five races now too.
“We got a lot of racing left in front of us,” he continued. “We’re now in a position to have at least one car fully locked in the Playoffs, and realistically both cars are probably locked in the Playoffs with today’s results. That’s super exciting.
“Not officially, Ford, don’t get mad at me, but realistically (smiling).”
With Ford only having 4 wins this season, RFK Racing has two of them. Penske, Keselowski’s former team, has the other 2. However, one could say that there’s not much a difference between Penske and RFK Racing anymore either.
Keselowski says that he wouldn’t want to quantify that yet, but he does feel like they’re in a really good spot already.
“I don’t know how you would measure that. How do you quantify what’s best and what’s not?
“If you go by wins, yeah, we’ve got a win and we’re locked in the Playoffs. That feels good, right? I think we’re on a good streak. If you go by points, I think the 12 and the 22 are maybe in front of us in points.
“Fords, we’re all really close. 12, 22, 17, the 4, we’re all very close in points. I don’t know how you quantify who’s best and who’s not.
“I think the four cars – the 22, 12, 4 and 17 – are all right on top of each other. I’m right there as well. Maybe the five of us you could lay a blanket over.
“We do have two cars and we’re a two-car team, and we have both cars there. We don’t have any good cars or bad cars. We don’t have any bad cars, which that feels good.
“We’re positioning ourselves to get there one day, and I’m proud of that. That’s earned, right? You got to earn that title. You do that with winning multiple races and contending for championships. We’re knocking on the door of that.
“Until we are walking in at Phoenix with three or four win stickers on our cars, it’s hard to say that we’re the best. That’s what we want to be.”
They’re well on their way. Compared to this time last year, Keselowski had 0 top 5 finishes and 3 top 10’s. This year, he has 5 top 5 finishes and 10 top 10’s. Buescher had 1 top 5 and 6 top 10’s at this point in 2022 where this season he has 5 top 5’s and 10 top 10’s.
Both have improved their finishing position by 4-6 spots too. Keselowski from 19.0 to 14.0 with Buescher from 17.95 to 13.0.
“I mean, so much has happened in 15 years I’ve been there,” said Buescher. “But the last two years, last 18 months, just to see the turnaround, new car kind of being a good reset for us, to be able to be competing for wins.
“A lot of different size racetracks, a couple checkered flags now, some great pit strategy there, great pit stops. It’s every department working hard to make this happen and get us this checkered flag.”
Keselowski said the peaks and valleys are as high and low there than anywhere else.
“Yeah, the highs are high and the lows are low over here,” he said. “We had a lot of lows last year. It’s nice to have these high marks. I don’t take ’em for granted. They mean more to me probably because of how big a struggle last year was for both teams. Probably even more specifically for me.
“I’m thrilled for it. I know the work that goes into it on all aspects. I’m thrilled for every department of our company, from the marketing side through all of competition.
“We’ve come so far. We still have a long ways to go to get to where I want us to be, but we’re building some really strong momentum with these wins.
“I’m just as curious as anyone else to see where it goes from here. I try not to have expectations for good or bad. I just try to do our best, see what that plays out to on the field.”
Playoff Cut Line
The 16th and final spot changed hands again on Monday with Michael McDowell having another dismal week with a 24th place effort. He was also 22nd in Richmond and now falls from +17 entering Richmond to +18 entering Michigan to -3 entering Indy.
That’s also because Ty Gibbs has gotten hot. He’s made up 31 points in two weeks in going from 28 points down to three points up. He’s done so without a top 10 finish too (15th, 11th). He’s just getting stage points and not making mistakes.
Bubba Wallace has also made up a lot of ground too. He went from +27 to +58 in two weeks but the most growth came between Richmond and Michigan in going from +27 entering to +54. He still gained four points in Michigan. Now, he just needs to maintain.
Daniel Suarez was a big winner too in going from -34 to -3. That’s a 31-point gain in Michigan and is back within striking distance. AJ Allmendinger continues to drop (-24). Alex Bowman (-44), Austin Cindric (-53) and Chase Elliott (-55) are now in really must win mode over the final three weeks.
Who will stand out over the next three weeks of wildcard races (2 road course, 1 superspeedway).
Right now, Brad Keselowski is +168 after being +122 two weeks ago. Kevin Harvick is +180 and so long as we don’t see another new winner, both are good.
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