No driver in NASCAR history understands the significance of the Brickyard 400 quite like Jeff Gordon.
From his youth as a California kid to an Indiana teen, Gordon grew up idolizing the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the 2.5-mile rectangular behemoth that has challenged every driver who ever dared to roar a race car across its history-laden pavement for more than a century — and the yard of bricks that remain from its 1909 paving to represent its start/finish line.
Since NASCAR’s official Indy debut in 1994 in a town simply — perfectly — known as Speedway, Indiana, Gordon’s name has been etched in the track’s lore. Just two days after his 23rd birthday, Gordon’s iconic rainbow-painted No. 24 car dashed through the checkered flag to win the inaugural Brickyard 400, his first of a Cup-record five victories on the Indy oval.
After a three-year hiatus, the Brickyard 400 returns to the NASCAR Cup Series schedule — a 160-lap affair slated for Sunday afternoon (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, IMS Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).
MORE: Brickyard 400 schedule
And three decades removed from the groundbreaking rumble of stock-car racing to the famed, long-open-wheel-only speedway, Gordon cherishes a return to the oval after NASCAR’s past three years racing instead on Indy’s infield road course.
“Obviously, there’s a lot of history with this event if you go back 30 years,” Gordon said in a phone interview with NASCAR.com. “And to celebrate that inaugural event is pretty amazing and a lot to tell. I mean, I think that that day, if you look at NASCAR’s popularity and where it sort of went to from those mid-90s, in that time in ’94 further, it obviously was a game-changer — not just for me, my career and the drivers that were there that were part of it, but just for the whole industry and motorsports in general.”
Indianapolis was and remains sacred ground, but for 85 years, its sanctity was exclusive to IndyCar racing. After successful NASCAR tests in 1993, the inaugural Brickyard 400 was scheduled for 1994 and became an instant crown jewel on the Cup Series schedule.
“Being a part of that day was really special,” Gordon said. “And I don’t know since then that I’ve seen that much hype, that much attention, media coverage, fan attendance and engagement, sponsors, teams, you name it. I mean, it was a hyped-up event, but it lived up to or exceeded the hype. And that just doesn’t happen very often.”
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That Gordon enjoyed so much success when the full-bodied machines of the stock-car world stormed into Indianapolis was something he could have never imagined as a kid. Well, not in a stock car, anyway.
“My heroes were the drivers that raced there — (Rick) Mears and Unser, AJ (Foyt) and (Johnny) Rutherford,” Gordon said. “And so I remember traveling back to Indiana in the early ’80s and going and visiting the museum and the track and it just became that much more real and that much more of a dream to race there one day.
“So it was disappointing that didn’t happen in an IndyCar. But at the same time, I think being a part of the inaugural (NASCAR) event and what that did to NASCAR and my career and Indianapolis and the history, it might have been even possibly more special for me just because of that personal connection.”
Gordon was in and out of Indianapolis Motor Speedway every week or two growing up, largely because Simpson Performance Products had a location at the track where Gordon would purchase racing equipment.
MORE: Gordon honored in Indy hometown in 2015
Now approaching age 53, Gordon is in the midst of another fruitful career arc. The immediacy after his 23 full-time years behind the wheel of the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet first propelled him to the FOX Sports booth as a lead analyst from 2016-21 before committing full-time to Hendrick itself, where he now serves as the vice chairman of the company behind team owner Rick Hendrick.
With that has come unique opportunities, perhaps none as impactful as coordinating an effort between Hendrick Motorsports and Arrow McLaren in the NTT IndyCar Series to put forth an entry for Kyle Larson in the 2024 Indianapolis 500 in his attempt at the Memorial Weekend Double. That effort ultimately fell short, with weather preventing Larson’s arrival in time to compete in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. But Gordon’s experience through the month of May allowed him to live vicariously through another Hendrick driver as his IndyCar and NASCAR dreams overlapped.
“When you’re there with a tie to a team like we were, then you’re caught up in every moment and every lap,” Gordon said. “And in qualifying, we had good speed, but then had the (mechanical) issue and he had to go back out. And to run four laps there and the car changing and the speeds that they’re carrying, I mean, to see how that all unfolded from that perspective was amazing. And I’ll never forget it.”
Now, for the first time since 2020, the NASCAR Cup Series returns to the famed oval for its 400-mile feature. The track’s long straightaways but tight, near-90-degree corners create a challenge unlike any other on the circuit’s schedule.
Gordon’s last win at the speedway came a decade ago, continuing a knack for winning every 10 years — 1994, 2004 and 2014 in addition to his 1998 and 2001 Brickyard triumphs. That only means one thing, right?
“Yeah! William Byron in 2024!” Gordon laughed.
OK, Gordon won’t be behind the wheel shooting for another victory in a year ending in a four. And hey, a Byron win would thrust the current driver of the No. 24 Chevrolet into exclusive company to win both at Daytona and Indy. But coincidence or not, Gordon, a four-time NASCAR Cup Series champion, always found Victory Lane these years at Indianapolis.
“I didn’t realize that (until) somebody had mentioned that to me the other day,” Gordon said. “I don’t know how exactly all that came together and why, but the track was special — special to me personally and special to our team. And everything happens for a reason. I’m a big believer in that, and so the numbers don’t lie. And it is just something about the 24 and the fours at Indianapolis. That’d be pretty cool to see that happen again this year.”
In that 1994 inaugural feature, Gordon recalled drivers needed a car that turned well in traffic behind other cars — which translated to most tracks on the schedule. But the long straights at Indy also highlighted the difference in horsepower under the hood, so teams would build cars slightly differently to manage the race and do what you needed the vehicle to do, he added.
“I just remember battling with competitors like Ernie Irvan,” Gordon continued. “And we would have the lead and be pretty loose out front, and he would use the draft and draft up behind me and get me looser, and then get underneath me and go by me. And then I would do the exact same thing to him. And that’s why we kept swapping the lead back and forth.”
Fast forward 20 years to Gordon’s final Brickyard 400 win. Though the Cup cars have changed dramatically from then to now — namely with the 2022 introduction of the Next Gen car — there are some things he believes still translate 10 years later.
“Over time, it just got tougher and tougher and tougher to get closer to the cars,” Gordon said. “We figured out aerodynamics and setups a lot better and cars got closer in competition. So I think we’re going to see more of that. I think that these cars need multiple grooves to be able to maneuver, so I think qualifying and track position is gonna be really, really important. So that’s going to play into the strategy. It’s going to play into qualifying. And then it’s going to come down to, if there are restarts, who can be aggressive and manage those restarts. And that was very similar when I won it in 2014. It was a lot like that.”
Thirty years after his triumph in the first Brickyard 400, the allure of the event is alive all over again — perhaps not coincidentally to the three-year vacancy from the 2.5-mile layout.
“Maybe it lost a little bit of its luster and its uniqueness because we went there every year,” Gordon said. “And now we haven’t been back for a while, and I think the excitement is back. And I think that’s good. I think it should be like that.”
On the Hendrick roster are drivers Larson, Chase Elliott, William Byron and Alex Bowman, who have a combined two top fives and five top 10s in 20 Brickyard 400 starts. Since the last Indy oval race, though, Larson and Elliott have each gone on to win Cup championships; Byron has won 13 Cup races, including three this year; and Bowman has won an additional six, including two weeks ago at the Chicago Street Course.
This week, Elliott enters Indy as the series’ points leader by just three points over Larson. But with a crown-jewel race on deck, all eyes shift to the checkered flag at Indianapolis instead of the points tally.
“It’s a big event and it’s a very special track. And I know what it means to our teams to go compete there,” Gordon said. “And I know what it would mean to them to win it. They recognize the history of the track. They recognize the history of our organization at this track, and there’s just certain events that are that are bigger: the Daytona 500 or the Southern 500. And this is one of those events that’s really going to stand out.
“And I hope there’s a big crowd there because I think fans will see a great show, and I know that our teams want to step up and go to Victory Lane.”
