Posted on by Staff Report

Paul Menard snuck into the top spot on the leaderboard just before the end of final Monster Energy Series practice, and Denny Hamlin smacked his No. 11 Toyota hard into the wall after the red-and-black flag already had been displayed as his car erupted into flames at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Saturday.

RELATED: Final practice results

The 50-minute practice session had already ended when Hamlin’s car did not turn as it approached Turn 4, it careened into the wall and fire trailed behind his rear bumper. He brought his car to a stop soon afterward, and exited the vehicle. His crew rolled out his backup car immediately.

“It was big for sure,” Hamlin told NBCSN of the end of practice incident. “It was the last corner and I think the red flag had been out for a minute or so. We had just got into Turn 1 when the red went out and we were going to finish our lap. It just blew a right-front. We hadn’t seen any wear issues so we might have run something over or whatever.”

Meanwhile, Menard’s lap of 185.079 mph in the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford bettered Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s second-fastest lap of 184.151 mph in his No. 17 Roush Fenway Racing Ford.

Last week’s Darlington winner Erik Jones in the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota (183.550 mph), Chris Buescher in the No. 37 JTG Daugherty Racing Chevrolet (183.385 mph) and Matt DiBenedetto in the No. 95 Leavine Family Racing Toyota (183.050 mph) rounded out the top five.

The Monster Energy Series returns to the track Sunday morning for Busch Pole Qualifying at 10:35 a.m. ET (NBCSN/NBC Sports App) before the Big Machine Vodka 400 at the Brickyard (2 p.m. ET, NBC/NBC Sports App, IMS Radio Network, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

FIRST PRACTICE
Chip Ganassi Racing drivers Kyle Larson and Kurt Busch topped the leaderboard in first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, with Larson wheeling his No. 42 Chevrolet around the 2.5-mile track for a fast lap of 185.025 mph on Saturday.

RELATED: First practice results

Busch, meanwhile, was second-fastest at 184.763 mph in his No. 1 Chevrolet in the practice session in preparation for Sunday’s regular-season finale, the Big Machine Vodka 400 at the Brickyard (2 p.m. ET, NBC/NBC Sports App, IMS Radio Network, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Brad Keselowski in the No. 2 Team Penske Ford (184.600 mph), Chase Elliott in the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet (184.305 mph) and Bubba Wallace in the No. 43 Richard Petty Motorsports Chevrolet (183.685 mph) rounded out the top five.

Jimmie Johnson, who is a four-time winner at Indianapolis and is currently below the cutline for the 16-driver playoff field, led for much of the session, but wound up with the ninth-fastest lap of 182.700 mph in the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.

The No. 95 Toyota of Matt DiBenedetto served a 15-minute practice hold at the end of the session for failing inspection twice at Darlington last week.

Posted on by Pat DeCola

SPEEDWAY, Ind. – “Meet me in Temecula,” NASCAR-style.

Tempers flared during NASCAR Xfinity Series final practice Friday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway when Mike Harmon and Michael Annett collided as Harmon was attempting to come down pit road – sending Annett’s bumper flying through the air.

Annett then confronted Harmon in the garage area, sticking his head in the window of the No. 74 Chevrolet to talk things over before a fiery interview on NBCSN in which he said he was “arguing with an idiot.”

Harmon later saw the video, prompting perhaps the tweet of the year.

Harmon felt the name-calling was unnecessary and told NASCAR.com on Saturday morning that he apologized profusely and took full responsibility for the incident.

Here’s his take on the contact itself:

“Christopher Bell got under me and I got out of the groove, so it kills your lap, so instead of driving two-and-a-half miles, I pitted and the spotter said ‘that’s clear’ and clear is clear to me, so I committed. Then the 1 (of Annett) came by. It actually kind of scared me; I wasn’t expecting him or anybody to be there. I thought ‘Aw, man.’ I felt terrible about it.”

And the ensuing confrontation in his garage stall:

“He came over hollering with the F word. What the eff this, and all that kind of stuff. I said, ‘Man, look, it’s my fault, OK? I apologize. You think I’d tear your car up and my car up on purpose in practice? That’s crazy.’

“I apologized to the man, told him what happened and then he wanted to take it to another level, acting disrespectful and calling me names and that kind of stuff, and I don’t appreciate that. I’m not going to stand for it. I messed up, and I manned up and said I messed up. It’s really hard to spot here. It’s hard to see. It was a mistake, we’re human.”

Harmon said that he and Annett have “never had any problem before” and that he recognizes the JR Motorsports driver is in faster equipment. He says he moves over for him every week and tries not to get in his way.

But it’s a two-way street.

“The deal is, I respect everybody and I demand respect. I was busy working on my car ’til the garage closed and I saw the video where he called me an idiot and said I didn’t belong out there, I don’t take that. I had to do something. I’m not going to look like a wimp,” Harmon said. “I know we set examples for people and got kids watching and all that, but you can’t roll over, you know? This country wasn’t built that way and racing wasn’t built that way. I’m not going to put up with it. You might be able to outrun me (on the track), but once we get out of the cars it’s man-to-man.”

Annett didn’t make the drive over to Temecula Applebee’s, and it’s probably a good thing for all parties involved that he didn’t.

“I guess (if he did) we’d probably have been taken to jail by the time we got through, because if he comes over running his mouth, I’m going to close it for him,” Harmon said. “I’ve had enough. He’d do me one, but it’d be on, I can tell you that.

“I was pretty sure he wasn’t going to show up. It’s easy to go in front of a camera and run your mouth but do it face-to-face, man-to-man. That’s what this is about. I doubt (we’ll have a face-to-face). If he knows what’s good for him, we won’t.”

Posted on by Pat DeCola

SPEEDWAY, Ind. – A year ago, Justin Allgaier was squatting down to kiss the fabled bricks after winning at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, fulfilling his lifelong dream after a childhood spent making the three-and-a-half hour trek from Illinois to sit in the grandstands countless times as a kid.

The past year, however, has been borderline nightmarish.

The Xfinity Series’ resident veteran captured the victory in last year’s event at the Brickyard, a whopping fifth victory in his best statistical season to date. With a head of steam rolling into the playoffs, Allgaier was the clear frontrunner for the title … eventually won by then-teammate Tyler Reddick.

RELATED: Indianapolis weekend schedule

A near-comical stretch of bad luck in the ’18 Xfinity Series Playoffs saw him endure multiple wrecks and four finishes of 15th or worse in just seven races en route to a third-place points finish — and see a magical season fizzle out with a whimper.

“Last year, to win five races, I look back and I’m like, ‘Holy crap, that was incredible,’” Allgaier said Friday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, site of Saturday’s Indiana 250 (3 p.m. ET, NBCSN, IMS Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). “But on the flip side, we got to the playoffs and it was so lackluster and we did such a bad job in the playoffs that you go, ‘At this point does winning five races really even matter?’”

This season offered a fresh start for Allgaier to shake off the disappointment at the tail-end of last year, and the ship appeared to be righted after a pair of top-three finishes to open ’19.

And then the wheels fell off, almost literally.

Allgaier saw just one top-10 finish over the next five races, culminating in an inauspicious 30th-place result at Bristol Motor Speedway in the spring — despite leading a race-high 138 laps. That’s been a particularly apt microcosm of Allgaier’s season to date. He nearly repeated the effort at Bristol a few weeks ago – leading 131 laps this time – en route to an eighth-place finish after a tire went down while leading in the closing laps.

“Bristol was funny,” Allgaier said. “We ran the fastest lap of the race with 20 laps to go on a restart and then to have a tire have a puncture in it with eight laps or nine laps to go, you look at it and go, ‘How does that happen? How do you get debris to cut the inside of that tire with that few laps to go and there’s no damage to anything else?’

“The way I look at it is God’s got a plan for everything, and if I go to the race track and give 100% every week and I do everything I can do, then the results are what they are. I don’t feel like we’ve done anything that I would go back and say, ‘Hey, I would do something different.’ There’s not a race this season where I’d do anything differently. Every race, I would’ve done the exact same thing.

“The old saying is, ‘I’d rather be lucky than good any day,’ and this year has been a true case of that. We’ve been good on multiple occasions and haven’t had the luck to go along with it. We’ve had fast race cars; we’ve done everything right. We just don’t have anything to show for it.”

The JR Motorsports driver slowly has been putting the pieces back together week by week since, compiling six top-three finishes in the 11 races from Richmond to Watkins Glen. From Kentucky to Darlington, Allgaier has put together the second-longest top-10 streak of his Xfinity career.

The speed’s there. The talent’s there. The veteran mindset is there.

The results are starting to come.

Allgaier was seventh and sixth in Friday’s pair of practice sessions, respectively, and perhaps the winds of change are beginning to blow his way and shift the tide in his favor for once.

MORE: Full practice results

“I hope so. The speed has been way better the last two months. … We didn’t fire off this season where we wanted to be at, there’s no question. We weren’t bad, we just weren’t as good as the ‘Big 3’ (of Christopher Bell, Cole Custer and Reddick),” Allgaier said. “I feel like we’ve definitely bridged that gap. We’ve had cars capable of being as good or better than (they have). We just need that racing luck to go our way. If we can do that, I think we have a valid shot at winning races and ultimately going for a championship.

“Hopefully, you pick up a win here to wrap up the end of the regular season and really kick off the beginning of the playoffs. … Last year, we won five before the playoffs and didn’t win any in the playoffs. This year, maybe we don’t win any in the regular season and we go win five in the playoffs. We’ll see what happens.”

Posted on by Holly Cain

SPEEDWAY, Ind. – Kyle Busch walked around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway garage Friday afternoon feeling equal parts ambitious and already highly accomplished.

The Joe Gibbs Racing driver locked down the 2019 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series regular-season championship last weekend at Darlington Raceway – his second regular-season title in as many years. And the clinch comes a full week before the series’ regular-season finale, Sunday’s Big Machine Vodka 400 at the Brickyard (2 p.m. ET on NBC, IMS Radio and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at the 2.5-mile Indianapolis track.

RELATED: Full Indianapolis schedule

Busch was third-fastest in the opening Xfinity Series practice Friday. He’ll suit up for opening Monster Energy Series practice Saturday morning. Qualifying will take place Sunday at 10:30 a.m. ET – the morning of the Brickyard 400.

Although it was a lengthy and tight trophy battle between Busch and defending series champion Joey Logano for the regular season title, Busch set the standard from the get-go. He was the first driver to earn four victories (at Phoenix, Auto Club, Martinsville and the first Pocono race) and has a series-best 21 top 10s – including a record-tying 11 consecutive to start the season – to pair with 13 top-five finishes to date.

The 2015 Monster Energy Series champion Busch won both the 2015 and 2016 Brickyard 400 races, joining four-time race winner Jimmie Johnson as the only two active drivers to have earned multiple wins here.

This weekend, Busch will compete in both Indianapolis Motor Speedway races, including Saturday afternoon’s Indiana 250 NASCAR Xfinity Series race. Busch is a three-time Xfinity race winner at Indy – taking the trophy from the pole position in all three wins (2013, 2015 and 2016) – and his combined five wins in the two NASCAR series equals the most stock car victories at the track. NASCAR Hall of Famer Jeff Gordon won five Brickyard 400s.

RELATED: JGR eyes royal sweep at Indy

Busch said Friday during a break in Xfinity Series practice that having the regular-season title already wrapped up does allow a bit of breathing room for this particular race weekend.

“Definitely way better to have it done,’’ Busch said. “Last year we didn’t have it done, so we had to points race and got it done (in the race).

“This time around we don’t have to points race at all, we can basically just focus on what we need to focus on to try to win the race. So when you got to throw away a stage or something like that to set yourself up for the end of the race, you can do that.’’

This sense of everything-to-gain is particularly bad news for Busch’s competition this weekend – and sets the tone for Busch’s fifth consecutive playoff run.

Busch has won three or more races in 10 of his 15 full-time Monster Energy Series seasons. Twice he has hoisted eight trophies in a year – 2018 and 2008 – yet neither time did he get to celebrate with the season championship trophy.

So in the midst of another chart-topping, regular-season championship year, Busch has set his eyes on navigating the 10-race playoffs. And, again, he’ll have the benefit of a hard-earned points cushion. The regular-season title – which he battled Team Penske’s Logano for – means an extra 15 points to start the playoff run. He also has a series-best 10 stage wins.

Busch has won at all 10 playoff venues – although his win at Charlotte Motor Speedway last May was on the traditional 1.5-mile oval, not the new Roval road course used in the October playoff race.

Twenty-one of Busch’s 55 career victories have come at playoff venues and he has multiple wins at Richmond (six), Dover (three), Texas (three), Phoenix (three) and Martinsville (two). However, Busch has earned only eight of those 21 wins during the playoff stretch of the season.

Last year he led the playoff standings going into Phoenix – the next-to-last race of the year that decides which four drivers advance to the Homestead-Miami season finale – and capped that round with the victory at ISM Raceway.

The four championship challengers finished 1-2-3-4 at Homestead  – Joey Logano, Martin Truex Jr., Kevin Harvick, and Busch. So, even after Busch’s amazing eight-win effort, Logano hoisted the Cup championship trophy.

All the momentum Busch and his No. 18 JGR Toyota team rightly carry now will be useful both for practical purposes and motivational cache.

This weekend, Busch is an absolute favorite to visit Indy’s historic Victory Lane – either in the Xfinity or Cup Series. Or both. And with the regular-season title locked up already, these races are about establishing a high team standard and putting the right foot forward.

“It is what it is right now,’’ Busch said. “We could have eight or 10 wins right now if all things went our way, but it doesn’t ever seem like it does. So, we’ll just keeping working hard and doing what we need to be doing.

“You know you can talk about championship runs and anything else right now, but the fact of the matter is it doesn’t matter. If you get crashed out or have things happen to you two races in a row, all those points go to nil. There’s too many things that can happen so you’ve just got to race it out.”

Posted on by Staff Report

Erik Jones has signed a contract extension with Joe Gibbs Racing, the organization announced Friday.

Jones will continue to drive the No. 20 Toyota Camry in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series in 2020 alongside teammates Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr.

RELATED: Key drivers in Silly Season

“I’m so happy to finally have my plans for 2020 confirmed and to talk about it,” Jones said in a team release. “I’m excited to be staying with Joe Gibbs Racing and the 20 team and to continue the success that we have built over the last two years in the Cup Series. I put my heart and soul into this and this race team. This is my living and how I want to make a career and what I want to do. I’ve been racing with JGR since 2014 and it’s really cool to be able to continue with the foundation we’ve built over the years and hopefully win more races and contend for championships together.”

Running in his third full-time Monster Energy Series season and second with JGR after moving from Furniture Row Racing in 2018, Jones has recorded two victories at NASCAR’s premier level — the Coke Zero Sugar 400 in July 2018 at Daytona International Speedway and the Bojangles’ Southern 500 at Darlington earlier this month.

RELATED: Jones wins at Darlington | Drivers to win in 100th start

Jones is the only driver in Cup Series history to have his first two wins occur at Daytona and Darlington. The 23-year-old Byron, Michigan, native qualified for the NASCAR Playoffs for the second consecutive season thanks to that win at Darlington.

Jones began his NASCAR national series career with Kyle Busch Motorsports in the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series, earning seven victories and the 2015 championship. He moved up to the Xfinity Series with JGR for a full-time stint in 2016. Jones has recorded nine Xfinity race wins.

“Erik has accomplished so much in our sport already and yet, he really is just at the start of a long career,” said Joe Gibbs, owner of Joe Gibbs Racing. “He’s been a part of Joe Gibbs Racing for almost his entire professional career and we’re excited to see what the future holds for him.”

Posted on by Zack Albert

The journey for Ryan Hines to a career in NASCAR was a natural one, having grown up with family members who raced and claiming a hometown that’s almost a half-hour drive to Eldora Speedway.

Last week, Hines told a more complete version of his story. Hines, a 23-year-old coordinator of Xfinity brand content for Stewart-Haas Racing, told NBC Sports about his path as a gay man in the stock-car racing industry in the hopes that it would provide inspiration to others.

One week later sitting outside the No. 98 SHR hauler in the Xfinity Series garage at Darlington Raceway, Hines said the reception of his story has been overwhelmingly positive.

“Everyone’s been good, everyone I work with,” said Hines, who primarily handles the weekend public relations duties for driver Chase Briscoe. “Media people around the sport have reached out, and I get a lot of random people who have reached out, too, to say ‘hey, thanks for sharing your story,’ saying how it helped them in different ways and how it inspired them. That means a lot, and that was the whole goal of it: just to be like, ‘hey, you can do it.’ Don’t limit yourself because you think that you can’t be yourself in this sport, because you can.”

On most weekends through his childhood, Hines could be found at a race track, whether it was following his cousin’s non-winged sprint car efforts through Ohio, Indiana and Michigan or working at Eldora’s dirt high banks. Hines provided updates for both the track’s website and later its video display board.

After graduating college, Hines received his first taste of NASCAR through an internship with Hendrick Motorsports before making the transition to SHR. “I’ve just grown up around it and it’s always been a family thing,” he says. “That’s what got me into it.”

Hines says he had come out to people close to him about his sexual orientation during high school. He said it wasn’t necessarily a personal burden that prompted him to share his story with a larger group this season, but rather the hope that he might be a source of encouragement.

“I did this story to hopefully help somebody,” Hines says. “I know growing up, what gave me the courage was reading stories on OutSports.com. Seeing other people do it in other sports, that kind of told me it was OK to be who I am and to not hide it. I’ve been out since high school to everyone close to me, but I figured doing this story would hopefully help further the conversation and help somebody. If you can just help one person and it speaks to them, then it’s worth it.”

Not that the reception has been entirely rosy. Critics emboldened by Internet anonymity and keyboard courage have shared divisive remarks, but Hines has made a point to largely ignore the hatred.

“Some of the social media comments — Facebook, in particular — aren’t so kind, but I expected that and it doesn’t really bother me,” Hines says. “Not everyone’s going to be OK with it, and that’s fine, but the people who matter, who are around me and the people that I work with are great with it and that’s all that matters to me.”

Hines’ openness has been refreshing, and he says he’s happy to see others benefit from its impact. The media attention has been another piece that’s helped spread his word.

Hines, though, says he’s hopeful a day will come when stories like his aren’t news, when one’s sexual orientation is just as natural as a family-bred path to a career in racing.

“That’s what one of my friends said to me. He’s like, the point of the story is it’s not a story, and I can’t say it any better than that,” Hines says. “It shouldn’t be a story, and I do hope we get to the point where being gay is the same as being straight. There’s not really an assumption that someone’s straight; you shouldn’t have to come out, so to speak. It should just be a normal part of everyday life.”

Posted on by Terrin Waack

Brick by brick, Hendrick Motorsports has become the most successful team at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. No more than three races have passed at the 2.5-mile oval without a Hendrick victory, ever. How it shakes out is 10 wins total.

That’s double any other organization.

Overall, Hendrick Motorsports has 26 top fives – most by four – and 40 top 10s – most by six – in 94 starts. It has led 328 laps more than its competition with a total of 1,025 go-arounds out front.

The only category the organization doesn’t completely dominate in is pole wins. It’s tied for the No. 1 spot with Joe Gibbs Racing at five apiece.

RELATED: JGR could sweep 2019 crown jewels

Jeff Gordon won the inaugural race at what’s now considered the Brickyard in 1994, and the driver of the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet went on to win a series-best five Brickyard 400s before retiring from full-time competition after the 2015 season. The next closest driver is Jimmie Johnson, who’s also a part of HMS family and still active in the No. 48 Chevy. Johnson has made it to Indy’s Victory Lane four times.

The other Hendrick win came from Kasey Kahne (also retired) in 2017.

As the Monster Energy Series heads to Indianapolis this Sunday (2 p.m. ET, NBC/NBC Sports App, IMS Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), Johnson finds himself in quite a predicament. For the first time in his career, the seven-time Cup Series champion is at risk of missing the NASCAR Playoffs, which were implemented in 2004. He’s ranked 18th in the championship standings at 599 points – 18 short of Daniel Suarez’s 617 in the 16th and final playoff spot – and Indy is the last regular-season race.

A silver lining: Johnson has been in this situation before … kind of.

Last year, Johnson entered the 26th event not locked into the postseason. He wasn’t outside the bubble like he is now, but he was 15th with no real security. His 16th-place finish ended up being enough to keep him within the top 16 standings and earn him a playoff berth.

Johnson ultimately closed out last season 14th.

RELATED: Power Rankings for Indy | Odds for Brickyard 400

And here’s another fun fact: Johnson went on to win the overall championship in three of the four seasons he won the Brickyard 400. The overlap years were 2006, 2008, and 2009. His fourth Indy win was 2012, when he finished third in the final standings.

Johnson is the only Hendrick Motorsports driver who’s not set for the NASCAR Playoffs. Chase Elliott (eighth) secured his bid with two wins (Talladega Superspeedway and Watkins Glen International). Alex Bowman’s first career victory (Chicagoland Speedway) earned him a slot (11th). William Byron pointed his way in, sitting safely 66 points above the cutline in 13th.

Then again, Johnson is also the only Hendrick driver who has kissed the bricks before.

Posted on by Staff Report

Zeb Wise won an emotional tribute race Thursday night at the dirt track in the Indianapolis Motor Speedway infield, beating out plenty of talented dirt racers — some of whom are NASCAR drivers.

Wise, just 16 years old, held off a late charge by both Kyle Larson and Christopher Bell — who would bring out cautions following separate on-track incidents with less than 10 laps to go — to win the second annual 39-lap Driven2SaveLives BC39. The race honors Bryan Clauson, a versatile and talented driver who died in August 2016.

Clauson drove the No. 39 throughout his career, and that’s the exact car Wise drove to victory for Clauson-Marshall Racing. In fact, Clauson-Marshall Racing swept the podium and finished 1-2-3, with Tyler Courtney and Chad Boat finishing second and third.

Larson, who drives for Chip Ganassi Racing in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, entered the race on the heels of a thrilling win in the final race of Wednesday’s opening act. He was running second to Wise on Thursday with 10 laps to go, made a bold move for the lead and created contact that resulted in a flat tire for Larson. He finished ninth.

Moments later, Bell — who has six wins in the NASCAR Xfinity Series this year with Joe Gibbs Racing — hopped the cushion in Turn 3 and nearly flipped to bring out the caution. He was running third at the time and slipped to a 15th-place finish.

In addition to Larson and Bell, full-time NASCAR national series drivers Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Chase Briscoe qualified for the main event. Stenhouse Jr. finished seventh place driving the No. 17, and Briscoe was 24th.

In an interesting NASCAR twist, Dillon Welch, who grew up racing and currently covers motorsports for MRN and NBC, turned heads by advancing to the A-Main. He finished 11th.

NASCAR weekend officially kicks off in Indianapolis on Friday with opening NASCAR Xfinity Series practice at 2:05 p.m. ET (NBCSN).

Posted on by Staff Report

The pursuit for the final two playoffs spots in the Monster Energy Series boils down to a final showdown this weekend at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Sunday’s Big Machine Vodka 400 at the Brickyard (2 p.m. ET, NBC/NBC Sports App, IMS Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) marks the last of 26 regular-season races, one with the high stakes.

It’s the second straight year Indianapolis has hosted the regular-season finale, which will determine the 16-driver postseason field. A group of 14 drivers have already clinched spots on the basis of regular-season wins or insurmountable points cushions, leaving just two berths up for grabs.

RELATED: Full schedule for Indianapolis | Odds, lines

Erik Jones and Kyle Larson finished first and second, respectively, last weekend at Darlington Raceway, and both took significant jumps in this week’s Power Rankings. Jones’ victory meant all four Joe Gibbs Racing drivers have won this year, and the organization carries a head of steam into the historic venue.

Here is the rest of the need-to-know information for Sunday’s regular-season finale.

TRACK DETAILS

Indy is a 2.5-mile rectangular track with 9.2-degree banking in all four turns and flat straightaways. The facility is home to the Indianapolis 500, which was first run in 1911. NASCAR’s top series has competed at the Brickyard 25 times. Jeff Gordon won the inaugural 400-mile event for stock cars in 1994, leading 93 of 160 laps.

RULES PACKAGE

The race at Indianapolis will feature the 2019 rules package with aero ducts and a tapered-spacer engine generating a targeted 550 horsepower.

Each team will be provided with three sets of Goodyear Eagle Speedway Radial tires for practice, one set for qualifying and nine sets for the 400-mile race (eight, plus one transferred from practice or qualifying).

This is the first time teams will run this tire combination at Indianapolis. A tire test at the 2.5-mile track on June 4-5 prompted officials to adopt the tire setup previously used this season at Pocono Raceway, another high-speed track with a different configuration but the same length. The Indianapolis track applied a sealer to the racing surface in May, ahead of the Indianapolis 500.

STATS

  • Jimmie Johnson has won four times at Indianapolis, part of Hendrick Motorsports’ record 10-win total at the 2.5-mile track. He has an 18-point gap to the postseason cutline, a deficit he’ll need to erase to avoid missing the playoffs for the first time in his career.
  • Kyle Busch, a two-time Brickyard winner, has won the pole position for the last three 400-milers at Indy. If he adds a third Indianapolis win to his portfolio Sunday, it will mark a sweep for Joe Gibbs Racing of four crown-jewel events (Daytona 500, Coca-Cola 600, Southern 500, Brickyard 400).
  • Since Chicagoland Speedway kicked off the NBC Sports portion of the NASCAR schedule, Busch has earned the most points. He’s followed on that list by his three Joe Gibbs Racing teammates: in order, Denny Hamlin, Martin Truex Jr. and Jones. Fifth on the list? Larson, who has five top-five finishes in the last nine races.

Source: Racing Insights

LIVE COVERAGE

This weekend’s race will air live Sunday at 2 p.m. ET on NBC and will be streamed on the NBC Sports App. Radio coverage can be found on the IMS Radio Network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. Also, follow along on NASCAR.com for live Lap-by-Lap coverage, the live leaderboard, Drive (featuring in-car cameras) and RaceView (subscription: in-car audio, stats, more). Be sure to set your lineup in Fantasy Live and make your picks in the Props Challenge.

2018 RACE WINNER

Brad Keselowski is the defending race winner at Indy, emerging from a fender-clanging duel with Hamlin to take the lead for the final time in the next-to-last lap. Keselowski’s first Brickyard 400 triumph was also a first for team owner Roger Penske, who has a peerless record in IndyCar competition at the historic track. Keselowski’s win was the second in what would be a three-race win streak as the No. 2 Ford team charged into the playoffs.

ACTIVE INDIANAPOLIS WINNERS

Johnson, four times; Busch, two times; Keselowski, Kevin Harvick, Paul Menard and Ryan Newman, one time each.