Brickyard seeks relevancy again
Perhaps it was a cosmic harbinger of what restrictor-plate racing could resemble in the Brickyard 400 next season.
Perhaps it was the result of multitudes of outside forces crushing down together under extraordinary circumstances in the waning laps: stage racing, best car already wrecked, brick fever.
Whatever the 24th installment of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race was at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, it left many wondering what happened.
Certainly, Kasey Kahne, after a dose of fluids reinvigorated a body depleted after nearly six hours of racing, waiting out red flags, rain delays and endless laterace crashes, was thrilled to have ended a 102-race winless streak and qualify for the playoffs.
But in the grand scheme — and visits to America’s most storied and important racing venue always seem to be considered that way — his 18th win at NASCAR’s highest level took on a final fling vibe. Kahne was hopeful but unsure of his future after a spate of unfulfilled seasons. Team owner Rick Hendrick was non-committal on whether he’d be retained for the last season of his contract.
Kahne did what he needed to do, but it was clear the best car had been consumed in the first flares of the coming conflagration when Kyle Busch — chasing a record third consecutive Brickyard 400 win — was wrecked by Martin Truex Jr. after leading 87 of the 110 laps he lasted.
Restrictor plates such as those used successfully in Saturday’s Xfinity Series race might have prevented another run-off winner had they been on the Cup cars. But the five ensuing cautions worked in the same way, preventing anyone from seizing a big lead. Monotonous history making gave way to spectacle.
Numerous delays and a midafternoon start time pressed the race toward dusk, the gloom providing easy metaphors for the observant and the snarky. Was the sun finally going down on the Brickyard 400 for good?
After nearly 10 years of decline in the racing product and local interest as the Indianapolis 500 has found its footing again, an intimate gathering of the faithful sprinkled itself around hulking and vacant grandstands that belied this as a major race. With three years left in the contract to stage Cup races at Indianapolis, this installment proved the point made by five-time Brickyard win- ner and Indiana product Jeff Gordon when he expressed sadness on a SiriusXM interview last week that the race had lost luster and “turned into another event.”
Maybe restrictor plates could compensate for the flat banks that have often belabored stock cars at Indianapolis. Or maybe events could concoct a scenario such as Sunday’s, in which a driver with a smoking engine — Jimmie Johnson — is battling three-wide for the lead in the final laps. But NASCAR can’t count on those scenarios every time.
Maybe fans will rush back. Maybe moving the event to September in 2018 as the regularseason finale will make it memorable again. The finish Sunday was memorable, though not necessarily in a desirable way.
Series officials’ seeming count of “onnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnne, In-di-a-nap-o-lis” before issuing a caution for the wreck that occurred behind Kahne on the second overtime restart — with him well short of the overtime line — will be rightly questioned. It felt, in the dark moment, as if NASCAR had had enough of this, too, with prospects for another restart bleak as the sun set. IMS doesn’t have lights for night racing.
NASCAR executive vice president and chief racing development officer Steve O’Donnell said Monday on SiriusXM’s Morning
Drive that officials waited to assess whether spinning cars would clog the track before deciding about the caution. He said officials were “up against it,” regarding sundown at 9:07 p.m. because oil on the track would have forced another red-flag period.
“We have always said we’re going to make every attempt to finish the race under green,” he said. “To do that, you have to see what happened with an incident. In this case, we did that.
“Once we decided to dispatch emergency equipment and knew there was oil on the racetrack, we threw out the caution. And, ultimately, that’s the end of the race.”
The end of this one. Considering that phrase in the grand scheme must wait awhile longer.