The NASCAR Cup Series' annual trip to the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway was full of storylines. Corey Heim earned a historic second win in the Brickyard 400 in only his 15th career start, much to the chagrin of Carson Hocevar.
Kyle Larson complained that the races are too long and then his right-rear tire did him a favor by only making him run 40 laps. And Todd Gilliland won a million dollars by finishing 24th.
Oh, and by the way, the race was absolutely horrible.
Stop if you've heard this one before. Passing was next to impossible following the first lap or two after each restart, and new tires meant nothing. That's been the theme with NASCAR's Next Gen car at Indianapolis, even as new tire and aerodynamic packages have improved the racing at most other tracks.
And where Indy is concerned, these issues trace much further back than the Next Gen.
It might finally be time for NASCAR to give up on trying to save its ill-fated Brickyard experiment
Let's play a game. Throughout the entire 30-plus year history of the NASCAR Cup Series at Indianapolis, see if you can think of one single Brickyard 400 that would qualify as an all-time classic race.
The first one? Maybe? Only because of the magnitude that surrounded the event itself.
From a pure racing perspective, the memorable moments have been few and far between. There was Juan Pablo Montoya speeding in the pits in 2009 and the eventful comedy of errors we got in 2017. Even then, those were things that happened to drivers, not things that drivers made happen.
The fact of the matter is that this track was not designed for stock cars, and it shows. Everybody is quick to blame the Next Gen, but forgets that the Car of Tomorrow and Gen 6 eras were almost as bad. There was a reason NASCAR moved the Brickyard 400 to the infield road course for three seasons between 2021 and 2023, a direct response to how dreadful the racing was in the late 2010s.
The O'Reilly Auto Parts Series has been a bit more tolerable at Indy, but only because it uses a pseudo-drafting package that significantly slows the cars down. Do we really want that type of artificial "fix" for the Cup product?
It's just not working. The only reason to go to Indy is because of the tradition tied to the venue, which is almost entirely owed to a different racing series. Take that away and all you're left with is a single-file parade in front of grandstands filled at less than one-quarter capacity.
NASCAR has done everything it can do to save the Brickyard 400, and now it's time to pull the plug. Let IndyCar have its crown jewel. The Cup Series belongs at Indianapolis Raceway Park.
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