Brickyards Past

Back in the summer of 1993, there was a buzz beyond anything I had ever seen in Indianapolis.

NASCAR was coming to town. It wasn’t official, just a “tire test,” but it was all but a dress rehearsal for what would become the Brickyard 400. I got to the Speedway just about the time that Dale Earnhardt rolled onto the historic pavement for the first time in his black No. 3 Chevrolet.

What he said on the backstretch that first lap I can’t repeat here, but it sort of reflected how he felt about driving on a course that had, heretofore, been the exclusive province of open-wheel cars.

A day or so of testing later, they left town on the way to Michigan. A couple months later, the race was announced. Purists, those who considered the hallowed grounds at the corner of 16th St. and Georgetown Road to be sacrosanct, set up a wail that could be heard in Terre Haute.

Eighteen years later, I wonder what all the fuss was about.

The racing has been…stellar at times, boring at others. It’s not like the other tracks on the circuit, because you can’t see all the way around, there’s hardly any banking and they just don’t look fast compared to Indy Cars.

But it’s like playing baseball at Yankee Stadium, treading the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field or shooting hoops in the old Boston Garden…historic.

Here are a few facts that you might be interested in as the Brickyard 400 approaches.

• With a permanent seating capacity for more than 250,000-plus people and infield seating that raises capacity to an approximate 400,000, it is the largest and highest-capacity sporting facility in history.

• There have been 17 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races at Indianapolis Motor Speedway since the first race, in 1994.

• Four drivers have competed in all 17 races: Jeff Burton, Jeff Gordon, Bobby Labonte and Mark Martin.

• Rick Mast won the first pole, in 1994.

• Jeff Gordon won the 1994 inaugural race.

• There have been 14 different pole winners.

• Jeff Gordon leads all pole winners, with three.

• 10 drivers have won, led by Jeff Gordon, with four victories.

• Jimmie Johnson (three), Dale Jarrett and Tony Stewart (two each) are the other multiple winners.

• Hendrick Motorsports has won seven races, more than any other organization.

• Nine races have been won from a top-five starting position.

• The farthest back a race winner has started at Indianapolis was 27th, by Jeff Gordon in 2001.

• Two drivers have won from the pole: Kevin Harvick in 2003 and Jimmie Johnson in 2008.

• Dale Jarrett (1996), Jimmie Johnson (2006) and Jamie McMurray (2010) are the only drivers to win both the Daytona 500 and the Brickyard 400 in the same season.

• Tony Stewart (8.2), Jeff Gordon (9.4) and Kevin Harvick (9.9) are the only active drivers to average a top-10 finish.

• Three of the last five Indianapolis races ending under green had a margin of victory under one second.

• 14 of the 17 races have been won by a past, reigning or future NASCAR Sprint Cup champion. The only three that were not: Ricky Rudd in 1997, Kevin Harvick in 2003 and Jamie McMurray in 2010.

• The winner of the Indianapolis race has won the championship in the same year eight times in the 17 years the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series has raced there: 2009: Jimmie Johnson; 2008: Jimmie Johnson; 2006: Jimmie Johnson; 2005: Tony Stewart; 2001: Jeff Gordon; 2000: Bobby Labonte; 1999: Dale Jarrett; 1998: Jeff Gordon. (NASCAR)(7-26-2011).

That last one is very interesting, at least to me. That’s why the Brickyard 400 is a bellwether for the Chase.

If you’re going…I’m not, darn it…please stop by the Mug-n-Bun for me. I’ll take a tenderloin, onion rings and the biggest home-brewed root beer they have. You can bill me.