The Brickyard 400 is back. After a three-year hiatus, which saw Indianapolis Motor Speedway and NASCAR leave the famed 2.5-mile oval in favor of an infield road course, one of NASCAR’s most prestigious races has returned to the schedule.
Though the Brickyard 400 at times has not been the most entertaining race, its importance to drivers and the garage has never wavered. Winning at Indianapolis, on the same circuit where the Indy 500 has been held since 1911, carries career-long bragging rights.
The event’s significance has created many memorable moments, both good and bad. So for the Brickyard 400’s 30th anniversary, here are 30 of the moments that have defined this race (in chronological order).
1994: Rick Mast wins pole
With an astounding 86 cars entered for the inaugural Brickyard 400 — a NASCAR record — the polesitter turned out to be a major surprise. Rick Mast, who was 21st in the point standings at the time, earned one of his four career pole positions and led the first two laps of the first Brickyard race before eventually finishing 22nd.
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1994: Bodine brothers clash
A family feud exploded into the public eye as brothers Geoff and Brett Bodine collided while racing for the lead of the inaugural Brickyard race. Geoff had one of the fastest cars of the day and had nudged Brett out of the way, but Brett retaliated by wrecking Geoff out of the lead. The brothers did not speak to each other for years but reconciled after an appearance on Oprah Winfrey’s show in 2000.
1994: Jeff Gordon wins inaugural Brickyard
Before he went on to become that Jeff Gordon, the “Wonder Boy” was a second-year driver with one career victory to his name when he found glory in the inaugural Brickyard 400. The win created an emotional scene for an adopted Hoosier who had moved from California to Indiana to pursue his racing dreams.
1995: Dale Earnhardt Sr. gets his Brickyard win
Earnhardt so badly wanted to make his mark at Indianapolis that he made sure to be the first car to “lead” a lap in a 1992 test, passing Rusty Wallace to do it. After disappointment in the inaugural race, Earnhardt won the second edition after waiting out a lengthy rain delay — then proclaimed himself “the first man” to win the 400 as a shot at Gordon.
1996: Dale Jarrett starts the tradition of kissing the bricks
It was once heresy to think stock cars could race on the hallowed ground of Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which had exclusively hosted open-wheel cars for more than 80 years. But it turned out to be a NASCAR driver who began one of the most famous Indy traditions. After winning in 1996, Jarrett and crew chief Todd Parrott visited the Yard of Bricks on the IMS frontstretch and planted a smooch, something now replicated by both NASCAR and Indy 500 winners.
1997: Ricky Rudd’s underdog win
As big multi-car teams began to show dominance in this era of NASCAR, one of the last driver-owners on a small team scored an upset win at the Brickyard. Rudd had pitted for the final time beyond what many thought was the fuel window and retained his track position up front for the entire last stint of the race to get the biggest victory of his Hall of Fame career.
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1998: Dale Jarrett runs out of gas
Jarrett was well on his way to a second Brickyard win and was leading by 16 seconds when his team ran him out of gas for no reason. Well, there was sort of a reason: A $10,000 bonus for leading at the halfway point of the race was awarded back then, and Jarrett’s team had elected to go for it. Except they miscalculated the fuel mileage, and Jarrett lost four laps while limping back to pit road.
1998-2001: Championship precursors
How much do the best drivers shine at Indianapolis? In four straight seasons, the Brickyard 400 winner went onto win that year’s Cup Series championship: Gordon in 1998, Jarrett in 1999, Bobby Labonte in 2000 and Gordon again in 2001. Overall, one-third of Brickyard 400 winners have won the title in the same season and all but five victors were present or future NASCAR champions.
2002: Kurt Busch vs. Jimmy Spencer
Spencer wrecked Busch, who then ran down the track and patted his chest and his rear end in a moment that defined the early years of Busch’s career. Afterward, Busch called Spencer “a decrepit old has-been, or maybe I should say a never-was.” The feud continued long afterward, with Spencer punching Busch at Michigan the next season.
2002: Bill Elliott wins at age 46
Hall of Famer Bill Elliott had a lengthy dry spell, going six straight seasons without a win before being paired with Ray Evernham’s new Dodge team in 2001. That led to a late-career rejuvenation, which included a dominant Brickyard win for Elliott — a celebration that notably featured his then-6-year-old son, Chase. This was also the year Tony Stewart punched a photographer in the garage after the race.
Bill Elliott celebrates his win at the 2002 Brickyard 400 with car owner Ray Evernham as Elliott’s son — current NASCAR star Chase Elliott — enjoys a Powerade. (Jonathan Ferrey / Getty Images)
2003: Kevin Harvick breaks through
Though Harvick won quickly after taking over the No. 3-turned-No. 29 car after Earnhardt died in 2001, he largely struggled in his sophom*ore season. So the 2003 Brickyard win was a significant moment for both Richard Childress Racing and Harvick, a Bakersfield, Calif., native who had grown up idolizing area driver Rick Mears (a four-time Indy 500 winner).
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2004: Jeff Gordon ties the greats
Though he later surpassed the mark, Gordon’s fourth Brickyard 400 put him into the legendary category of four-time winners on the Indy oval along with Mears, A.J. Foyt and Al Unser Sr. Of course, not everyone (including Foyt) appreciated having a NASCAR driver lumped in with Indy 500 winners.
2005: Tony Stewart’s first win
In one of the all-time classic Brickyard scenes, an emotional Stewart finally won at his beloved home track, stopped to salute his family and friends in the Turn 2 suites on his victory lap and then climbed the frontstretch fence with his crew. He called it the “greatest day of my life.”
2007: ‘Here, kitty kitty’
Stewart made it two Brickyard wins in three years, but his “Here, kitty kitty” line while chasing down Harvick for the race lead created one of the signature moments of his career.
2008: The tire debacle
By far the most infamous moment in Brickyard 400 history, the tire debacle is still often mentioned all these years later. Goodyear’s tires were disintegrating so rapidly with the new “Car of Tomorrow” that NASCAR was forced to throw caution flags every 10 laps. There was never a period of more than a dozen green-flag laps for the entire race, and many have pointed to this race as the start of an attendance downfall (though it also coincided with NASCAR’s overall decline).
A shredded tire from Matt Kenseth’s car during the 2008 Brickyard 400 tells the tale of a disastrous race for the Car of Tomorrow, marred by cautions every 10 laps. (Geoff Burke / Getty Images for NASCAR)
2009: Juan Pablo Montoya’s speeding penalty
Montoya was cruising toward a victory, which would have made him the first driver to win both the Indianapolis 500 and the Brickyard 400. Except on a pit stop with 35 laps to go, he was caught speeding on pit road. Montoya was heated (he said, “If they do this to me, I’m going to kill them” on the team radio and swore on his wife and children he was not speeding), but NASCAR’s electronic timing and scoring system caught him going slightly over the limit in two segments.
2009: Jimmie Johnson becomes first driver to repeat
Johnson’s original Brickyard win in 2008 was overshadowed by the tire issues, but he won the next season to become NASCAR’s first back-to-back winner of the Indianapolis race (thanks in part to Montoya’s mistake).
2010: Jamie McMurray’s Daytona-Brickyard double
After already winning the Daytona 500 earlier in the year, McMurray swept NASCAR’s two biggest races and also gave car owner Chip Ganassi a “Chip Sweep.” Paired with Dario Franchitti’s Indy 500 win a few months earlier, Ganassi became the first owner to win the Daytona 500, Indy 500 and Brickyard 400 in the same season.
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2011: Paul Menard’s upset
The Brickyard 400 is typically not the type of race to create random winners, but it happened in 2011 when Menard went to Indianapolis and scored the lone victory of his 13-year career.
2012: Johnson’s fourth
Like Gordon in 2004, Johnson (then a five-time Cup champion) added to the legacy of Indianapolis greats by winning his fourth race on the oval.
2013: Ryan Newman wins
Two weeks after being told he would not return to Stewart-Haas Racing, Newman scored his only Brickyard victory and, like Stewart, enjoyed the spoils of being a native Hoosier in Indy’s victory lane. This turned out to be the penultimate win of Newman’s career; he won just once more in his final eight seasons.
2014: Gordon wins fifth
In his second-to-last full-time season, Gordon won for a record-breaking fifth time at Indianapolis — nearly bookending his Indy career with high-profile Brickyard wins. No one has been more successful on the Indianapolis oval than Gordon.
Jeff Gordon celebrates after winning the 2014 Brickyard 400, his record fifth triumph on the Indianapolis oval. (Rainier Ehrhardt / Getty Images)
2016: Gordon and Stewart’s final lap
Gordon was supposed to be done racing after 2015, but Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s concussion brought him back into the Cup Series for eight races in 2016 — starting with the Brickyard 400. That was also Stewart’s final season, and the two pulled their cars alongside each other after the checkered flag to make a final lap around the track that meant so much to both of them.
2016: Kyle Busch’s dominance
Busch not only won back-to-back Brickyards in 2015 and 2016 but swept the weekend (Cup Series and Xfinity Series) each time — including from the pole position in both 2016 races. In particular, his 2016 Brickyard 400 victory was one of the most boring races in recent NASCAR history — primarily because Busch was completely untouchable while leading 149 of 170 laps.
2017: Busch and Martin Truex Jr. collide
The 2017 Brickyard 400 was one of the wildest Indianapolis races ever, with several memorable moments. The chaos started when pseudo-teammates Busch (Joe Gibbs Racing) and Martin Truex Jr. (Furniture Row Racing) had been working together for “teammate restarts,” but Busch decided he no longer wanted to do so. Truex then got loose while they raced hard for the lead and wrecked both of them, prompting a confrontation between Truex crew members and Busch crew chief Adam Stevens on pit road.
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2017: Johnson’s ambitious move
As the 2017 race continued to be wild, Kasey Kahne was racing for the win with Brad Keselowski, which suddenly allowed Johnson to join the battle. With his car smoking from the rear, Johnson took it three-wide for the win but spun out and crashed to trigger overtime.
Kasey Kahne takes the checkered flag under caution at the 2017 Brickyard 400. It was one of the most thrilling editions of the race, finishing in near-darkness. (Daniel Shirey / Getty Images)
2017: Kahne wins as darkness falls
After several incidents and a long red flag, Kahne snapped a three-year skid to win his final career Cup Series race when a caution came out behind him. Kahne was judged to have reached NASCAR’s “overtime line” before officials threw the yellow flag, which would have created a major problem if not since it was nearly 9 p.m. at the time.
2018: Penske’s first Brickyard
Brad Keselowski gave car owner Roger Penske, who had 16 Indy 500 wins at the time, his long-awaited first Brickyard 400 trophy. The next year, Penske bought both the IndyCar Series and the racetrack, which has blossomed under his stewardship.
2020: Heavyweight showdown
In what was the final Brickyard 400 until now, the two top cars of the 2020 season were driven by Harvick and Denny Hamlin. But when Hamlin was leading Harvick with seven laps to go, his tire suddenly blew and he crashed out of the race — another disappointment for the No. 11 team after Hamlin had also been leading late in 2018. It remains the only “major” Hamlin has not won.
2021-2023: Road Course
With attendance in continued decline and road course racing all the rage, the track and NASCAR opted to have cars run on the Indianapolis road course instead of the oval. But that race felt like a gimmick and did not carry the same prestige, which has re-opened the door for the return of the real Brickyard race this season.
GO DEEPERNASCAR Pocono takeaways: Ryan Blaney's continued improvement, NASCAR's crown jewel races(Top photo of Tony Stewart’s crew celebrating his win at the 2005 Brickyard 400: Michael Hickey / WireImage via Getty Images)
