NASCAR at Indianapolis 2016: Winners and Losers from the Brickyard 400
If winning back-to-back Brickyard 400s wasn’t enough for Kyle Busch, he did something unprecedented: He won both weekend poles and both weekend races.
“I can’t get my brain around sweeping a weekend,” NBCSN’s Steve Letarte said after the race.
Busch led an amazing 149 laps on the afternoon, and it was never a question of whether he was the best. The only question was whether he could keep the car out of trouble long enough to rain Skittles in Victory Lane and then go kiss some bricks.
“NASCAR is all about the man and the machines,” NBCSN’s Jeff Burton said after the race. “Joe Gibbs Racing’s Toyotas all have roughly the same equipment. So I think it is worth noting what Kyle Busch and [crew chief] Adam Stevens are doing with their equipment. They have taken advantage of it.”
JGR had a great day, finishing three of its drivers inside the top four, but it wasn’t the only winner on the day.
Stay right here for winners and losers from Indy.
Loser: "Jimmy" Johnson
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A few days ago, I had already penciled in Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s Director of Signage* as a loser for putting Jeff Gordon’s name above the Dale Earnhardt Jr. garage.
The No. 88 team took umbrage with the change in signage and promptly asked Indianapolis Motor Speedway to remove it. Gordon is a substitute. Would, say, Alex Bowman’s name get plastered on the garage?
Joe Menzer of FoxSports.com wrote, “Their message was clear: Even though Earnhardt sat out last weekend at New Hampshire, is out again this weekend and already has been ruled out for next Sunday at Pocono Raceway, this is still Earnhardt's team.”
As if that wasn’t enough, some genius stenciled “Jimmy Johnson” along the wall. Maybe this person confused the spelling with NFL analyst Jimmy Johnson. But we’re not dealing with a NASCAR rookie or an obscure journeyman. This is Jimmie Johnson! Mr. Six-Time!
Johnson tweeted out a hilarious message at the start of the day. At least he’s got a great sense of humor about this typo.
*Presumably not a thing.
Winner: Jimmie Johnson
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A graphic popped up during the NBCSN broadcast that Hendrick Motorsports had gone 14 races without a win (now 15). Most alarming for this titan of NASCAR was this: HMS had zero top-10s in the past three races—a first since the year 2000.
And after Johnson was hit by a speeding penalty that dropped him from seventh to 24th, it appeared he had shot his team in the tire.
He ground his way through the field, and on the overtime restart he moved up four spots, from seventh to third, in an amazing bit of grit.
“It says a lot,” he said on the NBCSN broadcast. “We’ve been working hard to get our cars where we need to be. We’re still not happy. I’m proud to run in this red car.”
It was a muscular feat of driving that Johnson got past so many fast cars at the end of the race.
“This Chevy was running good once we got in the lead pack of cars,” he said. “It’s just unfortunate for that speeding penalty. Just digging hard and getting it done.”
Johnson was the shining light of HMS at Indy, but as a team it has a lot of work to do be a contender in the Chase. Right now, HMS is not.
Loser: Trevor Bayne's Terrible Crash
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Trevor Bayne should be put in timeout for the wreck he was involved in late in the race.
Bayne and Clint Bowyer, both running somewhere in the 20s at the Brickyard, got into a nasty accident as Bowyer tried to pass Bayne. Bayne went for the block, and it took them out of the game.
In many sports, especially as a young athlete, you’re told to know the situation. Bayne had little to gain and much to lose by doing something so stupid from the back of the pack.
Because of his gaffe, he finished 30th and likely lost an additional 10 to 15 points. The way other drivers were dropping, he could have earned a top-15 if he had any patience.
Points matter to Bayne. He was on the surface of the Chase bubble, and now he’s off it completely in 18th place (19th in the Chase Grid).
It’s one thing to get caught up as a casualty of someone else’s wreck, but when it’s all you and your doing, it that hurts your team, you need to put on the conical dunce cap or write out sentences on a chalkboard until your hand cramps up.
Or, like my fourth-grade teacher, Mr. Purdy, enacted in his totalitarian regime, stand up straight while holding a dictionary in each outstretched arm. That’ll burn the anterior deltoids like nobody’s business.
Winner: The Man, the Myth, the Larson
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I don’t know about you, but I expected Kyle Larson to be a bit more excited that he piloted his No. 42 car to fifth-place finish at the Brickyard 400.
Instead, he looked like his favorite pen ran out of ink.
“I don’t know if I was expecting more than a top-five,” Larson said on the NBCSN broadcast. “I didn’t know we had that speed in our car. Solid day for the whole team. We qualified good for once.”
Wow, way to raise up the morale in the garage. I bet that crew can’t wait to hit the snooze bar in the a.m.
Did somebody forget to tell Larson that he is now 15th in the driver standings and 16th on the Chase Grid?
Right now, he’s on the most volatile spot in the standings. But with more efforts like this, perhaps he can sneak into the Chase while other drivers (e.g. Bayne) fall off the grid completely.
Loser: No. 11 Gets No. 11
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OK, so as irritating as ESPN’s Cris Carter and his “C’mon, man!” segment are, we need Carter to give Denny Hamlin a good helping of, “C’mon, man!”
The No. 11 team earned its 11th penalty on pit road and its seventh speeding penalty. And Hamlin still finished fourth!
“I think moving back to 20th or so, we passed the cars,” Hamlin told NBCSN. “We didn’t get by on strategy. Our car was good in traffic. This is a great day for JGR, but [Johnson] packed that air under me and took it.”
But it’s those pit-road gaffes that will keep this team from reaching Homestead.
“You had to be perfect in all facets of racing and we made a mistake on pit lane, and we can’t win doing that. I’m proud to get back to a top five,” he said.
He’s right. They can’t keep doing that. It’s a testament to his talent as a driver and to the team that builds such a fast car, but at some point this driver error will bite him. The thing is, it already has; it just doesn’t sting yet. Yet.
Winner: One Final Lap
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Seeing Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon drive by side-by-side like pace cars was, in a word, special.
“It most likely is the last time we get to do this,” Stewart, who finished 11th, told NBCSN. “I couldn’t think of a better guy to share that moment with.”
For Gordon too.
These drivers have hated each other, crushed each other, fought each other and now they love each other. Just like brothers.
“Tony and I have gone through a lot over the years, and we’ve become good friends,” Gordon said during the NBCSN broadcast. “I was with him when he got hurt and to see what he’s done and how tough he is as a competitor. Now I know more about who Tony Stewart really is. I’m proud to race with him in his final race.”
Gordon, who amazingly finished 13th at the Brickyard, will have at least one more race next week at Pocono as he fills in for Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“My thing is, I can’t wait to talk to Dale Jr. and debrief him,” Gordon said. “I want him in the car as soon as possible. I’m too old to be doing this stuff. I think I can do better next week for him, and we’ll go from there.”
These two drivers won’t take that final lap around Pocono together because Pocono isn’t the Brickyard. What fans and viewers got to see Sunday afternoon was one of those moments, something that will resonate stronger as the two part from the sport for good.
Loser: Team Penske's Elusive Bid for a Brickyard 400
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Well, Team Penske could not get it done for the Captain at the Brickyard 400. Roger Penske has never won the race, though he has won just about everything else under the sun.
In this, the team’s 50th year, winning the Brickyard would have been something special.
Early in the race, Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano adopted differing fuel strategies from the rest of the field. It allowed BK to lead some laps that otherwise were earmarked for Busch.
Late in the race, Keselowski, running in seventh, was taken out in an errant restart, which left it all up to Logano—with the golden-anniversary paint scheme—restarting from P2 outside of Busch to challenge for the win.
Everyone at home must have been thinking about what extent would Logano go to win the race for Penske.
The fact was nobody could keep pace with Busch, and Logano (n.) did not Logano (v.) the field. I somehow doubt Penske would like an unseemly make-out session with the bricks, so it was actually impressive that Logano let the cars that were faster than his motor ahead.
He finished seventh, and the good news is nobody is talking about it.
Winner: Cloudy with a Chance of Skittles
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The only driver more dominant in one race this season than Busch was at the Brickyard 400 was Martin Truex Jr.’s Coca-Cola 600.
Busch led 149 of 170 laps on the day. His car was two lengths better on restarts within the first five seconds.
On top of that, he won two poles on the weekend and now two races—the first driver in history to do that in one two-day stretch.
“I certainly hoped it would be that good,” Busch said on NBCSN after ther race. “This Toyota was awesome today to get out front and stay out front. Not even some of my teammates could challenge us. This thing was on rails.”
Stevens mentioned on NBCSN that the Brickyard can be a harbinger of things to come in terms of title hopes. Busch won last year’s Brickyard and went on to win the Sprint Cup. Now he's won his second Brickyard as Skittles rained down from above.
Winning this race nudges Busch and Joe Gibbs Racing back into the title picture—an image that escaped them for a few weeks as Team Penske stole headlines.
Now it’s on to Pocono, where Busch and JGR will look to reassert their dominance and make it three in a row for Coach Gibbs.
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