NASCAR’s return to the Brickyard 400 at the 2.5-mile Indianapolis Oval ended up being a highly entertaining spectacle last Sunday. There were chances that the experience could’ve been terrible considering that it was low fan attendance that caused the event to be out of favor in the first place. Fortunately, the track held up splendidly and made for a memorable outing.
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Racing on the iconic race track is an honor that every driver values highly. And retired hero Kevin Harvick believes that the race would’ve been similarly well received even if the experience had turned up subpar. He said on Harvick Happy Hour, “Whether it’s a good race or a bad race it doesn’t matter. It does not matter to me. It’s a historic racetrack.”
“Our cars have gone there for 30 years and to be able to race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is an honor. It needs to be on the oval. We don’t need any more irrelevant years at the Brickyard racing on the road course.” Harvick is a three-time winner of the Brickyard 400 and knows, only too well, what it means to race on the oval at the Racing Capital of the World.
Hendrick Motorsports driver Kyle Larson ended up winning the race on Sunday. The Xfinity Series had returned to the track alongside its premier counterpart and had an equally engaging race. Stewart-Haas Racing driver Riley Herbst turned out to be the surprise winner in that fixture with a winning pass in the final. It is safe to say now that a lost crown jewel has finally been found.
Harvick forces a reality check on Kyle Busch for Indianapolis mishap
Busch, driving the No. 8 car for Richard Childress Racing, looked set for a decent finish in the top 10 in Indianapolis. That was until he overdrove a corner and crashed into Denny Hamlin with just a few laps to go till the checkered flag. Breaking down the incident, Harvick explained why it was hard for him to have empathy for Busch after such reckless episodes.
He said, “He’s been in scenarios where it hasn’t been his fault, but this one is 100% on him, with a car that they ran in the back with for a majority of the day. They wound up in the front, making a pass inside the top five, you’ve got to finish those.” Perhaps Busch will benefit from the two-week break that NASCAR is currently on and pull himself together when it reconvenes in Richmond.
