Indy oval's return restores a crown jewel to NASCAR schedule

Jeff Gordon wishes he could remember more details from his first Indianapolis victory.

It has been 30 years since that day, Aug. 6, 1994. A milestone that is pretty amazing to Gordon, who laughs about his lack of memory.

Gordon will go down in history as NASCAR‘s first winner at Indianapolis — an event with so much hype and publicity as stock cars descended upon hallowed ground for open-wheel competition. Gordon, in his recognizable rainbow No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, led 93 of the race’s 160 laps.

“I remember more of the feeling and the energy of seeing so many people riding around on the pace lap,” Gordon told ESPN. “When you start competing, you’re only thinking about your car, executing the race, and the competitors and how you’re racing them. I think I got pretty good applause during driver introductions, which was very cool. I was still new to NASCAR and grew up in Indiana. I wasn’t sure what kind of support I was going to get. So to get that applause and go out and compete at that level, you could get a sense when we were leading the race toward the end of the crowd reaction.

“That was highly motivating to me. And when the race was over to see how many people stuck around cheering for me, it was a life-changing experience. Those types of feelings and the energy and support will be something I’ll never forget.”

Gordon went on to win four more times at Indianapolis, but there is nothing like the first considering NASCAR at the Brickyard was once a far-off dream.

The Speedway is sacred to open-wheel purists, who did not want to see stock cars — or “taxi cabs” as some critics would call them — compete at the track where the Indianapolis 500 is held. Tony Hulman, who bought Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1945, kicked NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. off the premises when the latter visited in 1954.

By the 1990s, though, something began to change. Tony George, then-track president, welcomed the idea of NASCAR competing at the track. By 1992, the stock car series held a tire test at the Speedway with a select group of drivers, and a year later, NASCAR held an open test at Indianapolis for more than 30 of its teams.

“It was the most hyped racing event that possibly I’ve ever been a part of,” Gordon said. “I’ve never seen that many people show up in support of a test and a race. It was chaos. But it was amazing chaos because you knew you were a part of something really special. So, you sensed it then, and I think the whole garage sensed that they wanted to win that race.”

A lot was tied into the first event: NASCAR at Indianapolis for the first time, Gordon being the first winner, and the triumph being Gordon’s second career victory.

Then in his early-20s, Gordon wasn’t unfamiliar with the spotlight that comes with being a young, talented driver. But when he arrived at Indianapolis in 1994 as a sophomore NASCAR Cup Series driver, winning one of the sport’s biggest races thrust him further into superstardom.

“To me, being able to compete there was just unreal and over the top,” Gordon said. “Let alone to go there and actually win the race.”

NASCAR racing returns to the Indianapolis oval Sunday after three seasons of running the infield road course. It seems fitting that it comes on the 30th anniversary of the first event.

Gordon is not the only driver who carries an affection for the oval. Or, as some would say, driving the correct way down the long, Gordon would even say, intimidating, front straightaway, which makes a driver feel like they’re being swallowed up because of the grandstands on both sides before getting into Turn 1. The first lap will get a driver’s attention as he heads for a flat, sharp left-hander.

“That track is special,” Gordon said of NASCAR competing again on the oval. “The competitors — the ones who have never raced on the oval — I think they’re going to enjoy it, be excited about it, and recognize the history of that track. The fact that we’ve been going to Indianapolis for 30 years and it’s been 30 years since that inaugural event, there’s a lot of history in that. There are a lot of stories that can be told about what this track has meant to NASCAR and motorsports.

“I still, to this day, sign tickets and programs from that inaugural event. So, it clearly has stood out and has withstood time. I think there’s definitely that piece of the story that will come back in this year’s event, and I think there are a lot of positives in that. NASCAR went to the next level back in the mid-’90s because of bold moves and collaborations they made, like with Indianapolis Motor Speedway to talk them into having a NASCAR race. ‘We know it’s an IndyCar track, but how do we make this happen?’ They made it happen and bold moves like that continued to happen and catapulted the sport to another level, and I think that should be celebrated.”

Thirty years after NASCAR’s first trip to the Brickyard, the sport has rediscovered that enthusiasm for trying new things. Indianapolis comes two weeks after NASCAR was racing on the streets of Chicago for the second consecutive year. It will be five days after the series announced that teams will have two different tire options in a points-paying race next month at Richmond.

No matter what NASCAR dreams up next, though, its affection for Indianapolis remains. Gordon, and many others, would caution that Sunday will be special considering the venue, but the racing may not turn out to be memorable — which is what led to the introduction of the road course in 2020 in the first place.

As the four-time Cup Series champion can attest, racing at the most recognizable racetrack in the country is a feeling like no other. NASCAR has restored a jewel to its crown of a schedule by returning to the oval when it stops off in Indianapolis.