Brickyard 400 Is Shorter Than Indy 500 but Has Become Bigger

The Brickyard 400, bidding to replace the Daytona 500 as stock car racing’s premier event, and the Indianapolis 500 as motor racing’s most popular event, will be run for the fifth time today before about 350,000 spectators at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The Brickyard has more than doubled Daytona’s attendance of 170,000, and last year had a larger purse, $4.9 million to $4.3 million.

“It’s risen in stature in quite a short period of time,” Dale Jarrett said of the relatively new race. Jarrett, the 1996 winner in a Ford, will start in the front row today, alongside pole-sitter Ernie Irvan in a Pontiac.

“It’s just an exceptional place to race,” Jarrett continued. “There’s incentive enough just to try and be the first two-time winner of the race and it’s incentive enough just to want to do well with the history of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.”

There are no statistical measures of excitement or enthusiasm, but the pulse of the fans attending the Brickyard and the Indy 500 would indicate that the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing,” longtime slogan of the Indy 500, now better fits the Brickyard 400.

Along 16th Street in Speedway, and down around Monument Circle and the Union Station in downtown Indianapolis--everywhere in Indiana’s sprawling capital--it seems as if it’s May in August.

Stock car’s elite seem proud to be here, but most are reluctant to claim that their race has surpassed the Indy 500 in prestige.

“Having grown up [in Pittsboro, Ind.] with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in my backyard and then being able to race at the most historic speedway of all time is really overwhelming,” said Jeff Gordon, defending Winston Cup champion and winner of the inaugural Brickyard 400 in 1994.

Said Ricky Rudd, last year’s Brickyard winner, “The Indy 500 has been going on since the early 1900s. The Brickyard is a relatively new race. I think for stock car purposes, I’d rate it right up there with the Daytona 500. I’m not sure where it gets rated compared to the Indy 500. I think today, with the split between IRL and CART, I’d have to say it’s probably as big.”

But Jeremy Mayfield, who won his first Winston Cup race last month at Pocono Raceway in Long Pond, Pa., says the Brickyard is No. 1.

“I think it’s bigger, and prestige-wise it’s a lot more. You talk to the fans at the race or the ones watching TV, I think all of them will tell you the Brickyard is definitely the highest. The Indy 500 used to be, but nowadays I think the Brickyard has passed it.”

Mark Martin, whose single-minded pursuit of the Winston Cup points title leaves little room for anything else, had this to say: “I’m a stock car racer. That’s all I’ve ever been and I don’t have a clue what the Indy 500 means, other than it’s been around 100 years or whatever. I don’t know and I don’t think it matters.”

Martin will be in the same Jack Roush-built Ford that he won with this season at Las Vegas, the Texas Speedway and Fontana.

Martin, Jarrett, Gordon, Rusty Wallace and Bobby Labonte will have added incentive today. If one of them wins, he will collect the No Bull 5 program’s $1-million bonus from the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., sponsor of the Winston Cup series.

The No Bull 5 has replaced the old Winston Million bonus. It works this way: The top five finishers in selected races become eligible for the $1-million prize if they win at the next selected race. The five became eligible by finishing up front in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte, N.C., in May.

“Now we’ve got an extra million dollars to race for, so if you can’t get excited for those things and get ready, you need to find something else to do,” Jarrett said.

Gordon, one of two winners of the Winston Million bonus--the other was Bill Elliott--was the spoiler at Charlotte when his victory prevented Wallace from collecting the bonus. Gordon was not eligible at that race.

“It can get pretty tough when you’re racing two guys going for a million bucks,” said Gordon, who seems to have a knack for winning special races. He won the first Brickyard 400 in 1994, the first race at California Speedway last year, the last Winston Cup race held at the North Wilkesboro (N.C.) Speedway in 1996, and the Winston Million by winning at Darlington, S.C., last year.

And here’s the surprising statistic: Gordon, already with two Winston Cup championships, is the youngest driver among the 43 in today’s race. He will turn 27 on Tuesday.

Brickyard 400 Facts

* When: Today, 10 a.m. PDT.

* TV: Channel 7

* Distance: 400 miles (160 laps).

* Purse: $5,385,081.

* Field: 43 American-built stock cars, all Fords, Chevrolets or Pontiacs.

* Defending champion: Ricky Rudd.