New car adds new twist to Indy's venerable Brickyard

Perhaps no track on the Sprint Cup circuit demands more of the automobile than storied Indianapolis. The sharp, 90-degree corners at the 99-year-old facility require the kind of hard braking usually found only at much smaller venues. The long, 3,300-foot straightaways place a tremendous strain on engines and a tremendous premium on horsepower. There are no restrictor plates to govern the motors, there's no banking to help add grip. Its difficulty lies in its inherent austerity, a two-and-a-half-mile rectangle of asphalt as flat, narrow, and featureless as they come.

Now a new variable is entered into that already-delicate mix. Sunday's Allstate 400 at the Brickyard will mark the debut of NASCAR's new vehicle at Indianapolis, one of only three Sprint Cup venues -- along with Kansas and Homestead -- that have yet to host what was once called the Car of Tomorrow. The vast majority of the field will come in blind, given that Kurt Busch, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Brian Vickers are the only drivers with any seat time in the new car at Indianapolis, the three having participated in a two-day April tire test at the racetrack.

“
I don't think the new car has made the racing a lot different at any racetrack we've gone to, and I wouldn't expect it to be a lot different at Indianapolis.
”
They came away with mixed reviews. Busch said the car still hits upward of 205 mph at the end of a straightaway, but requires more brake entering each of the four corners. He expects Sunday to be harder on brakes and harder on engines, given that the car is slower through the corners and takes longer to get back up to full speed.

"You'll see the speeds still in qualifying, but the pace will drop off once we get into the race," Busch said during the April test. "That really won't help with the racing we want to see. We want to see guys right on top of each other trying to pass."

That could be a chore given the combination of historically tight car and historically tight racetrack. "It could possibly be its worst race just because of aero," said Tony Eury Jr., Earnhardt's crew chief. "That track is very aero-sensitive to the cars. You're going to see what you did at Pocono. You're going to see a lot of two-tire stops. You're going to see a lot of things happening just to keep your track position. It's not a favorable place to pass, and track position will be everything. I think the race will be won off pit road."

It's not all gloom and doom. Greg Erwin, Greg Biffle's crew chief, said Goodyear will be enforcing a left-front air pressure minimum to try and head off the tire blowouts that have plagued the last few Indianapolis races, a greater concern now given the force the new car exerts on that tire. But let's face it: Indianapolis is always narrow, always difficult to pass. Will the presence of the new car really make that much of a difference?

"I don't think the new car has made the racing a lot different at any racetrack we've gone to, and I wouldn't expect it to be a lot different at Indianapolis," said Ryan Newman. "Last year we had, let's say, some tire issues. We were worried about the track rubbering up and making fuel runs. Hopefully, based on the test they did this year, we'll have a different situation when it comes to this car at that racetrack, because obviously we've had some tire talk this year with this racecar. We'll see how it all works out, but I don't think the racing or anything in general should be way different than it ever has been."

Neither does two-time Brickyard winner Tony Stewart. The track will still basically be a one-groove facility because of its tight corners, there will still be four places to make a mistake rather than two, the preferred line will still be right down on the white stripe. Those things make it difficult to pass at Indianapolis before the car even enters the equation. But in Stewart's mind, they don't dilute what it means to win there.


"I think what sometimes the fans and sometimes the media loses sight of is that you're still winning a race at a track that has a rich history, and just to have your name on a list of winners there is a huge, huge accomplishment, in my opinion," he said.

"Most of times, somebody that's won the race there has won it in dominating fashion, and I think sometimes people lose perspective of what the accomplishment of winning that race is when you've had a dominating day like that or you've had a car that was just that much better than everybody else's. [They] lose sight and say, well, it was a bad race. It wasn't a bad race. It was a team that figured out the equation better than somebody else and went out and had a performance that day that showed that. I think you'll see a very similar race to what we've seen in the past. You never know for sure until you get there, obviously, but I think it's going to be very similar to what we've seen in years past."

Winning at Indianapolis, with its finicky, temperature-sensitive asphalt, requires that perfect combination of skilled driver and deft crew chief. In the 15-year history of NASCAR races at the Brickyard, there have been no flukes. The champions have often dominated the entire weekend. The new car could play into that -- somebody might very well hit it during initial practice on Friday, and leave the rest of the field trailing behind.

"I would say in general, this racecar seems to be very sensitive, and it seems that there are certain teams that get it right at certain racetracks and they dominate, whether it's a team itself or an organization," Newman said. "We've seen Roush be really strong at certain racetracks, we've seen Gibbs be really strong at certain racetracks, we've seen Hendrick struggle a little bit compared to what they used to do last year with this car at certain racetracks. It seems to be really hit and miss. But when you hit it, man, it seems like the guys who hit it hit it right, and the whole organization hits it. I don't think Indianapolis will be any different with respect to that."