Sisters Jennifer and Christy Lawson of Clinton were attending their first Brickyard 400 and bought tickets within minutes after it was announced Gordon would be competing.
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Kyle Busch heard all about the potential to pull off a historic sweep at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. “I couldn’t think of a better guy to share that moment with than Jeff”.
His crew chief, Adam Stevens, the one man who knows Busch’s racing style best tried to put his supremacy into perspective.
If Busch keeps driving this well, he’ll be impossible to catch. “When that caution came out with 10 or 11 to go, that was sort of the kick (in the butt) that we didn’t want to see”.
Kyle Busch started the NASCAR Xfinity Series race and Sprint Cup race this weekend from pole, and made history by winning both of them.
Busch had to hold off the competition during four restarts in the final laps, including two overtime sessions that shook up the top five.
For some, like third-place finisher Jimmie Johnson, the restarts were exactly what he needed.
Gordon, who officially retired from NASCAR competition past year, was tapped to fill in for Dale Earnhardt Jr.at IMS and Pocono.
Previous year when Busch won this race, he went on to win the championship.
“I was coming anyway to root for Chase (Elliott), but now I get to cheer for Chase and Jeff”, said Tyler Sharp, 27, of Rushville, who said he was a “huge” Jeff Gordon fan until the champ stepped out of the seat.
“There was nowhere to go, but that’s definitely not the result we wanted for sure”. “We didn’t. We ran out”.
After the race, Earnhardt called Gordon a “real pro” on Twitter and reiterated that he appreciated “his efforts to help our Axalta Racing team get better”. Gordon, who got a ton of fanfare in 2015 when he, along with everyone else, thought the four-time champion and five-time Brickyard 400 victor was making his final Brickyard start, was back as a contingency plan for Junior, who’s sidelined because of concussion concerns.
Even though there were far fewer people at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) for the Brickyard 400 than the 100th Running of the Indianapolis 500, several factors may explain why attendance is down for the annual NASCAR Sprint Cup race.
And it seems everyone has embraced the two sentimental favorites this weekend. While it’s hard to say where he might wind up this year, he’s already nearly matched his win total from last season (five) – a season where, by the way, he didn’t even run the full season because of an injury at the beginning of the year.
“I didn’t want one (restart) let alone five of them, or however many there were”, he joked. He just wasn’t happy about it.
“Thank you to Tony Stewart”, Gordon said.
Ryan Newman (31) loses control of his vehicle on a restart in the closing laps of the Brickyard 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup auto race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indianapolis, Sunday, July 24, 2016. “Well, I won’t be following in his footsteps”. I’m too old to be doing this stuff. Most of all, I think he should be very proud of his race team. He still doesn’t have a Brickyard win.
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The No. 18 auto was so strong that Roger Penske’s drivers started with a strategy of trying stretch their runs long enough to make one fewer pit stop. It didn’t work against Busch, either. “I hate that we finished seventh, but it’s probably where we deserved to finish from a speed point of view”. AP material published by LongIsland.com, is done so with explicit permission.
