Little track down the street outdid IMS on performance

As if it needed deciding, Sunday's Allstate 400 at the Brickyard settled the question of which race track in the greater Indianapolis area has the best racing.

The question actually came up last week in the prelude to the 16th annual Cup Series visit to Indianapolis Motor Speedway, in conjunction with the annual USAC/NASCAR tripleheader at O'Reilly Raceway Park.

"What's a better place to watch a race, IMS or ORP?"

Record-breaker

Ron Hornaday became the first driver to win four consecutive races in the 15-year history of the Camping World Truck Series on Friday, taking the AAA Insurance 200 at O'Reilly Raceway Park.

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You would've had to have been in a coma not to know the answer to that, without a doubt, would be the former Indianapolis Raceway Park, which is about as old school of a short track as that lovably roughneck brand of racing could provide.

And the weekend's NASCAR racing certainly secured that rep. What could have been better than Ron Hornaday going for his record-setting fourth Camping World Truck Series victory in a row (on old tires) with inaugural Truck Series champion Mike Skinner (on new tires) chasing him down from deep in the AAA Insurance 200 field?

There were plenty of lanes for Skinner to make his way through traffic, and plenty of laps left once he got to Hornaday's bumper. But over the last 10 laps, three things were burned into every observer's brain.

One, they saw history created as Hornaday held on to win, proving again that age is just another number. Two, they saw the tremendous amount of ability and respect possessed by two series veterans who know the value of each victory. And three, as Dennis Setzer and Aric Almirola -- who had come back from a lap down in another short-track treat -- nipped inside and out trying to improve their positions. They saw why ORP is the best show in town.

Carl Edwards only reinforced that in Saturday's Kroger 200 for the Nationwide Series. He came from deep in the field to overtake Kyle Busch, with only a little more contact than Hornaday and Skinner had used -- which was virtually none. The racing behind them, as Busch tried to hold on to his position and youngsters Steve Wallace and Trevor Bayne tried to come back to their former lead roles, was spectacular.

And then we had the Brickyard.

You hate to be a cynic, but maybe the crowd, or the semblance of one for Sunday's main event of the weekend, is about what it should be for the level of entertainment provided.

There's no denying the aura and historical legacy surrounding IMS. The racing action -- because by the barest definition, that's what it is, even if that action gets further graded, like on a scale from 1 to 10 -- even holds a lot of drama.

But is it scintillating? Like on a scale that we saw at ORP? Not even close.

I got a note during the week of the race from a woman who had witnessed the previous year's Brickyard 400. She said words to the effect of, "just wait until you see the people who won't be there ..."

Comeback victory

Carl Edwards passed Kyle Busch with 22 laps to go Saturday night at O'Reilly Raceway Park and went on to win the Nationwide Series Kroger 200.

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Well, I was kinda shocked at how empty the lower stands were along the length of the frontstretch. And those stands on the outside at the Turn 3 end of the backstretch reminded me of Atlanta Motor Speedway at its worst. Otherwise, in what's been a rough year of attendance across the board, I thought the Brickyard had a good crowd.

And just to show you that the quality of the show isn't the bottom line, the stands at ORP were far from overflowing, also.

But if you ask me, Sunday's "show" was no better, no worse than a year ago. It was just different. People paid their money, they took their chances by coming -- or watching -- and they got a show. The drama was of a different variety, but it wasn't provided by the racing.

If you ended up raving about anything at the end of Sunday's race -- and I doubt many people did other than questioning an obviously open-and-shut speeding penalty -- it wasn't the racing.

The biggest irony was that in the end, the same guy won on a day when the racing scaled out to about a 2 or 3 on that scale of 1 to 10. That didn't happen at ORP, where the action was easily an 8 or a 9.

Next year, the choice on where to go should be easy.

Racing as it should have been

On the Brickyard 400's last lap, the top three finishers had the three fastest laps registered on NASCAR.COM's Live Leaderboard application, and in that order. But what was the sad thing? The fourth-fastest final lap of the 38 cars running at the finish was by Juan Montoya, who ruined his chance at history by making a mistake and speeding on pit road in the race's fastest car, on his final pit stop. On a day when passing was virtually impossible, there was nothing he could do about the mistake after it knocked him back to 12th in the running order.

Finishing business?

While Nationwide Series point leader Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards have no choice but to travel from the East Coast to Iowa between Thursday and Saturday to compete in the inaugural Nationwide race at Iowa Speedway, Kevin Harvick is apparently looking to make up for a missed opportunity in Iowa's inaugural season two years ago.

"I had the opportunity to run in the NASCAR Camping World East/West race in 2007 -- we had a great car for most of the race, but lost a cylinder late, which caused us to finish second [to Joey Logano]," Harvick said. "However, that opportunity has given our team a good feel of what this track has to offer."

From KHI's perspective, the best thing it offers is another chance for development driver Cale Gale to get back on track and practice and qualify the car on Friday and Saturday before Harvick can get there. Harvick will do the initial practice on Thursday.

Wins: Thru Indy/ORP

	2008	2009
Cup Series	7	3
Nationwide	5	6
Truck Series	2	2

Kyle Busch Victory Watch

Busch offered perhaps the most insightful look into where he, his career and his Joe Gibbs Racing team are at, as the Indianapolis weekend got underway on Friday afternoon. The most unfortunate aspect of his weekend, in which he threatened to win in both the Nationwide and Truck series races, is that he ended up short in all three series.

But the way he dealt with the shortfalls makes it possible he can still eclipse his 2008 record total of 21 wins (8 Cup, 10 Nationwide, 3 Truck).

This weekend creates a daunting mid-country hop between Pocono and Iowa for the inaugural Nationwide event. He's now at 11 down and 11 to go. His 2008 win total at this point was 15, so it'll be interesting to see where the positive steps he's made in his reaction to adversity leads, particularly as he tries to rebound from falling out of a qualified Chase for the Sprint Cup position.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.