NASCAR: Throwback Thursday to the 1997 Brickyard 400
By Matt Lovisa
NASCAR has been racing at Indianapolis Motor Speedway since 1994 and a few of the best Brickyard 400’s happened during the 1990’s, including the 1997 Brickyard 400.
The 1997 running of the Brickyard 400 was the fourth race at the iconic speedway. The previous three winners of the Brickyard 400 were Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt and Dale Jarrett. All three are NASCAR champions and winners of the Daytona 500 as well. It seemed as though the winners of the Brickyard 400 could only come from the top teams in NASCAR.
In 1997, that all changed because of Ricky Rudd.
Rudd, driving for his own team and sponsored by Tide, drove his No. 10 Ford Thunderbird to the biggest victory of his career.
“For me it’s definitely the biggest win of my career,” Rudd said to Motorsport.com in an interview from 2014. “I was never fortunate enough to be able to win at Daytona. I’d probably put them in that order, Daytona out front. Right in there would be Indy. If I wasn’t able to win Daytona, at least I got Indy.”
The previous year, Rudd started 35th and finished 6th, proving that he knew how to get to the front at one of NASCAR’s most difficult tracks.
Rudd would start the 1997 Brickyard 400 from 7th place, his best starting position at Indy in his career. He only led 15 laps compared to the Yates Racing teammates of Ernie Irvan and Dale Jarrett who led 70 laps of the race’s 160.
With twenty laps remaining in the race, Rudd wasn’t even in the 3. Those spots were held by Dale Jarrett, Jeff Gordon and Mark Martin, who all needed to pit one more time to avoid running out of fuel.
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By in this stage of the race, Rudd was very close on fuel, with his last pit stop coming at lap 114. Jeff Burton was also close on fuel and when he was forced to pit with 15 laps to go after running over debris. The caution flew as he was exiting the pits, creating the perfect strategy for him to win. However, he was penalized for speeding when leaving pit road and had to relinquish the lead.
This set the stage for Rudd, who stayed out along with a few others, to try to stretch his fuel to the end and steal the victory.
Rudd and his underdog team played the strategy perfectly and led the last 15 laps, driving the final 46 laps without a pit stop, to pick up the biggest victory of his career.
“When the last caution came out, a lot of guys came to pit road and didn’t realize how important track position was at that track,” Rudd told Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2011 as he reminisced on his win. “The cars had an aero push, so a lot of guys that were dominant out front got a splash of fuel and right-side tires, but when they got in the dirty air they couldn’t get back to the front. We took off, and the field behind us, even with the new tires, couldn’t advance. Fuel mileage put us in a position of clean air to try to win the race.
“The guys with gas and tires were on our bumper, but they found out in the dirty air they couldn’t beat us. The dirty air was a worse disadvantage than the advantage of putting on new tires.”
Next: NASCAR: Playoff Picture After New Hampshire
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