NASCAR Stars All Revved Up for Indy

Tony Stewart grew up an hour's drive from America's most revered race track, Indianapolis Motor Speedway home of the world's most famous race, the Indianapolis 500. And he absolutely remembers his initial reaction -- nearly two decades ago -- to the earth-shaking news that NASCAR might be crashing the party.

"I'll be honest, when I first heard about the test that was going to happen there, I was against it,'' said Stewart, a two-time Brickyard 400 winner and former IndyCar champion.

"But on that day, I was a guy that had grown up in Indiana. ...I was against it because I thought the Indy 500 was the only thing that deserved to be at the Brickyard.

Veteran Mark Martin called the idea of racing there, "ridiculous.''

"I didn't think we belonged there, I didn't think the race track would be conducive to stock car racing,'' Martin said. "All of which was really wrong.''

As with Stewart and Martin, the idea has won over the toughest of converts. And when 43 cars take the green flag in Sunday's Brickyard 400, it will be more than just another race or just another victory. It's a once-a-season emotional indulgence.

"Living in Indiana, racing around Indiana. ... it was every short track , open-wheel Sprint Cup driver's dream to race at Indianapolis one day,'' said four-time Cup Series champion Jeff Gordon, whose family uprooted from California and relocated to Pittsboro, Indiana, so Gordon could legally race midgets and sprint cars as a young teenager.

"To be able to do that in the very first ever stock car race there in '94, win it then go on to win it three more times, is something that I probably put up as the highest accomplishments of my career.''

The reverence for Indianapolis among NASCAR drivers is so palpable, that if it decided NASCAR's hierarchy of grand events, the Brickyard 400 would stand supreme.

The decision to welcome NASCAR to the hallowed 2.5-mile track by former Indianapolis Motor Speedway Chairman Tony George was initially met with skepticism from the sport's purists, who, like Stewart, felt strongly that anything but the sleek, ultra-fast Indy cars competing on the track was racing blasphemy.

But George thought NASCAR would only enhance the Indianapolis Motor Speedway's body of work and having a second major event made financial sense. NASCAR loved the idea of putting on its show at one of racing's most important venues.

And those NASCAR drivers fortunate enough to win on the yard of bricks since, cherish the accomplishment so much that one of them --- 1999 winner Dale Jarrett -- started a tradition of kissing the bricks at the start-finish line that's now followed by the Indy 500 winners too.


Sixteen years after the good ol' boys arrived at Indianapolis, has NASCAR or the Speedway benefited more from this relationship?

The answer is yes. It's been completely mutual.

The crowds have dipped through the years -- if you consider 200,000 a dip. And the media and some fans complain about the racing on the famously treacherous and narrow track, a lack of passing and the tendency of a couple dominant cars running away with it all.

But you can say that about any race on any given Sunday.

NASCAR's stop at Indianapolis is a love affair between driver and tradition, a rare chance to feel a part of history in a sport often accused of abandoning tradition in a relentless pursuit of entertaining new fans.

Let's just say 500 miles at Pocono doesn't evoke the same emotion. Depending on the racing they were raised on, a win in the Brickyard 400 trumps even NASCAR's designated crown jewel, the Daytona 500.

"I've been fortunate enough to run every race there and it's a hell of an experience to be quite honest,'' veteran Jeff Burton said.

"To be able to go there and see everything that goes on. ... it's just a whole different world.''