Sunday saw the Cup Series return to the famed Brickyard after three years stint on the road course. It was a much-anticipated return. I won’t recap the race and all the resultant fallout from it. Those horses if not dead are approaching death. At this time, I’ll leave it to others continue with the incessant, but much deserved pounding of Sunday’s goings on.
Congratulations, Kyle Larson for his fourth win of the season, 11th of the GEN 7 era (tied for 1st) and 27th of his Cup career. Another week atop the Regular Season Points Standings. Good thing he missed that Charlotte race to keep things close and that race interesting.
So put away blend lines, overtimes and timing of caution flags and let’s talk about Sunday’s Record Number of Lead Changes. NASCAR Loop Data recorded 18 lead changes among 13 different drivers.
That wasn’t the record though.
The Brickyard’s Lead Change Record Sunday was, there was not a single Racing Lead Change recorded in the 112 Green Flag Racing Laps run.
Zero.
We had seven (7) Lead Changes under caution. Three (3) on Restarts. And a whooping eight (8) when the Leader Pitted under Green and gave the lead up to the next car. But in the nearly 4 hours of racing, the 70K fans in attendance who bought tickets in hopes of seeing the GEN 7 put on a better race never witnessed a single car race pass or overtake the leader under green to take the lead.
Not a single Racing Lead Change. Not a single time.
And those 3.63 million TV viewers who thought they may have missed a RLC during the channel switching back and forth between NBC and USA because of breaking news and network time constraints have nothing to worry about.
They didn’t miss it… because it never happened.
Period.
For the first time this season we have a 0 Racing Lead Change Race.
It’s not a surprise… but it is. We were warned. The drivers had told us that passing was going to be difficult here. I can only speak for myself, but I had high hopes for the new car, that things were going to be different and passing wouldn’t be THAT tough. Plus, those Xfinity drivers once again put on a whale of a show on that same track Saturday, so Cup should be better, shouldn’t it?
Boy was I wrong.
My high hopes were quickly dashed. As the race developed and with passing being nearly impossible, the Brickyard turned into another fuel mileage affair with passing being dictated by differing fuel strategies only. At the end of the day, none of those 18 Lead Changes were RLC’s and the Crown Jewel event had produced the season’s first Goose Egg, the eighth in the GEN 7 era.
Richmond, Loudon and last week’s race, Pocono came really close but each of those dodged the dreaded Goose Egg by registering a single RLC before their Checkered Flags fell.
Last season, the Goose Eggs went to Pocono and the Indy GP. In the first year of the GEN 7, five races had Goose Eggs – Martinsville-1, Bristol Dirt, Gateway, Sonoma, and Road America. Maybe this trend from 5 to 2 to now 1 is positive and shows improvement. I, for one hope so.
But it is disappointing and to a degree discouraging that with all the work that has been done in attempts to improve the GEN 7 race-ability and all that was riding on the return of this Crown Jewel event that not a single car could find somehow, some way the means necessary to make a single, solitary Green Flag Pass on the leader.
NASCAR fans diss F1 for its series inability to produce Lead Changes. Don’t look now, but here we are.
The Crown Jewel Goose Egg places Indy at the bottom of the Track RLC Rankings.
And with no drivers registering an RLC, the Drivers’ Standings remain the same as after Pocono, with Denny Hamlin holding a 5 RLC lead over Regular Season Points Leader Larson.
With no passing at the point, maybe things were better throughout the field. NASCAR Loop Data shows that there were 2608 Green Flag Passes throughout the field. This was up significantly over the meager 1384 Green Flag Passes that took place in 2020, the last time Cup was at the Brickyard. It lagged slightly behind the 2804 Green Flag Passes and 35.5 Green Flag Passes per Green Flag Lap that fans saw last year at the road course. That race had a Goose Egg in the RLC column as well. The passing Sunday was concentrated at the back in positions P15-39, outside the picture of the front-focused TV coverage.
It was no surprise that Kyle Larson had the most Green Flag Passes and he tied Christopher Bell for most Quality Passes (P1-P15) for the race.
With all that said, even with the Goose Egg RLC, backloaded passing, drop in green flag passes and all the controversies, if it was my call, I’d still come back to the Brickyard next season. If we are going to be there, we need to be on the oval. If we must race on the Road Course, we have no business being there. Again, FWIW.
Final Thoughts
It was good to be back at the Brickyard. Hard to believe it has been 30 years. It seems like yesterday that I had left work early to drive three hours to see the “unofficial” tire test, in hopes that Cup would finally get to run there. Two years later, it finally happened.
That 1994 Brickyard 400 was the largest attended race in Cup history to date. 86 cars showed up to compete for 43 starting positions-half raced; half went home. Over 250K fans packed the stands for a sold-out, record-breaking event. Demand was so high that no tickets were sold to the infield to assure the Cup crowd would not surpass the crowd for the 500. Everyone wanted to see how the stockers would race for the first time on the 2.5-mile track that had only previously seen open wheelers racing.
Fast forward 30 years. 39 cars showed up to compete for 40 starting positions. An estimated 70K fans came out to see how the GEN 7, NASCAR’s latest stock car and as NASCAR President Steve Phelps noted, “the panacea for all that ails NASCAR” could race on the flat track that stockers had not raced on since 2020. Many of the drivers who had raced in the 1994 inaugural event were present Sunday for its 30thAnniversary. The racing world watched (albeit between multiple channel changes) as NASCAR returned to one of the most historic venues in all of motor racing.
Overall, I was expecting more but hope improvements are made so that next year’s version comes closer to what we saw on Saturday. I think that would be electric and worthy of what this event should be.
With all that said, I hope the post-Olympic break, multi-compound experiment at Richmond is successful and help keeps the Virginia Short Track out of the Goose Egg category. One of the last things this sport needs now is for fans, especially new fans to go a month and only see 1 pass for the lead over that time period.
It has to be hard to build momentum after coming out of a two week Olympic break that is loaded with competitors from around the world doing their best and leaving it all on the line to try to pass one another to get the Gold and then tune into an event where the winner is determined by who can figure out how slow you must go and how much you must hold back so you can ride just enough fumes to the win.
Don’t get me wrong, strategy has its place and has its appeal, but it’s not for everyone. But old fans, new fans and future fans understand and appreciate pedal to the metal, common men doing uncommon things, all-out efforts going for the win. Coming out of the all-out Olympics to fuel strategy feather throttle Cup events could be some tough sledding.
Plus, it doesn’t help that the sport returns into NFL pre-season with regular season and college football right on its heels.
With all that said, a lot of how the season finishes, hinges on Richmond.
I just hope it’s up to the challenge.
Tune in in two weeks and we’ll find out.
Thunder On… and Stay Safe!
David Nance
Photo Credit (cover): Justin Casterline/Getty Images
Interesting stats, very interesting, indeed.
Thanks, David.
Your articles still amaze me. The Indy race really disappointed me. It was boring and hard for me to keep watching and paying attention. I kept finding little things to do while just listening. Racing is not the same any more and that is disappointing.
Again, thank you and keep them coming. A lot of times, your articles are more interesting that the actual race. I love the way you write!
Vivian