Editors Note: This is a great piece from NASCAR.
1.) The inaugural Brickyard 400, held on August 6, 1994, marked the first time since 1909, the year the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was built, that a stock car competed at the 2 ½ mile rectangular-shaped track. That first NASCAR event was also the first time in speedway history that two races were held there in a single year.
This race was historic not only for the obvious reasons, but it also marked the final premier series start for racing legend A.J. Foyt. It also marked the only NASCAR start for open-wheel star Danny Sullivan and sports car ace Geoff Brabham. West Coast stock car champion Mike Chase also made the field. Virginian Rick Mast, driving a Richard Jackson Ford Thunderbird, was the surprise pole winner setting a speed of 172.414 mph. Dale Earnhardt won the outside front row spot.
Thirteen different drivers led a total of 21 times in a race which seemed to favor Ernie Irvan in the later stages. The native Californian was leading the race with five laps to go when he cut down a tire handing the lead to Jeff Gordon. The young star held the lead for the final laps to record his second career victory. Gordon has stated that this race will surely rank among the most notable of his career.
The first Brickyard 500 proved to be very competitive with 36 of the 43 car field finishing the race. A total of 16 cars finished on the lead lap, with only 25 of the event’s 160 laps being run under caution.
2.) NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. was a fine mechanic and a very good race driver, finishing fifth in the first stock car race on Daytona Beach in 1936. The event was sanctioned by the American Automobile Association, the same sanctioning body which staged the 500 miler at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Mr. France developed many friendships with AAA competitors and officials through the Daytona race and these connections led to France working with several race teams which competed in the Indianapolis 500 during the late 1930’s through 1946.
One team he worked with was owned by a fellow named Joel Thorne who was the young heir to a family fortune. Thorne spent much of that fortune on race cars designed and built by Art Sparks, one of the era’s premier car builders and a friend of France’s. The official panoramic speedway photo, taken before the 1939 Indy classic, features all of the race’s competitors with Thorne and France, both nearly 6 foot 5 inches in height, standing side by side in the center of the photo. Bill France Sr.’s worked with Sparks at Indianapolis for several years with France’s shining moment as a member of Sparks’ 1946 Indianapolis 500 winning team with driver George Robson.
3.) Many of today’s top NASCAR drivers competed in the open-wheel ranks before finding a home in the nation’s premier racing series, the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series. Jeff Gordon led the trend in November 1992, making his first series start at Atlanta Motor Speedway the same day Richard Petty made his last start.
Since that day Tony Stewart, Ryan Newman, Mike Bliss, Robby Gordon, John Andretti and Dave Blaney have come to the top series of NASCAR. Andretti, Stewart and Robby Gordon have made the Spartan effort to compete in the Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway and the Indianapolis 500 on the same day. More recently, Kasey Kahne, Jason Leffler and Casey Mears have also moved their way into to the number one racing series in the nation, the NASCASR NEXTEL Cup Series.
4.) The first NASCAR race held in Indiana for the division that would evolve to become the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series took place at Funk’s Speedway in Winchester, Indiana on October 15, 1950. Named for Frank Funk, the man who carved the track out of a corn field in 1916 with a horse-drawn plow, the track featured a covered wooden grandstand holding 5,000 and a high-banked, pot-holed dirt surface which measured ½ mile in length. It is a stark contrast to today’s gleaming 2 ½ mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway, with its super-smooth racing surface, seating for over 200,000 and infield championship golf course.
Indiana’s first NASCAR race was for 100 miles or 200 laps over the ½ mile track. The starting field consisted of 13 cars with the short field due to a major NASCAR race being run the same day at Martinsville, Va.
Dick Linder from Pittsburgh, Pa. put Don Rogala’s Olds 88 on the pole for Funk’s event. Linder led the first three laps before being taken out on lap 4 with mechanical problems. Ohio’s Bucky Sager took over the front spot on lap 4 and held it to lap 149, relinquishing the lead to Lloyd Moore. Moore led the last 51 laps for his only NASCAR win, collecting $1,000 for his efforts.
Lloyd Moore, a school bus mechanic from Frewsburg, N.Y., raced on the weekends for New York car dealer Julian Buesink. Moore still lives in Frewsburg and at age 93 is the oldest surviving NASCAR driver.
5.) Ray Evernham has a unique record in the history of the Brickyard 400. He has won the race three times in two different capacities with two different teams, two different drivers and two different makes of cars.
His first two wins came as crew chief for Jeff Gordon and the Hendrick Motorsports #24 Chevrolet team. Together they won the inaugural Brickyard event of 1994 and again in 1998. Evernham’s role the third time came as car owner in 2002 with Bill Elliott behind the wheel of a Dodge. Mike Ford served as crew chief for this event.
Evernham-prepared entries not only won these three races, they were also very good qualifiers. Gordon got both his Brickyard wins from third starting position while Elliott started in second spot for his victory. The cars Evernham prepared also led the most laps in all three events.
6.) The first Brickyard 400 run in 1994 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway was the last NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series start for legendary racer A.J. Foyt. Equally gifted in all forms of racing, Foyt is the winningest Indy car driver to compete in NASCAR’s top series. He has seven victories with six coming on superspeedways and one road course win.
His first NASCAR win came at the wheel of a Ray Nichels Dodge in the 1964 Firecracker 400 at Daytona. Foyt won his second consecutive Daytona Firecracker classic in 1965 with a Wood Brothers Ford. Foyt’s next NASCAR win came on the road course at Riverside, California in 1970, driving Jack Bowsher’s Ford to victory. Foyt joined the Wood Brothers again in 1971-1972 for the rest of his victories which included back-to-back wins at Ontario, Ca. in ’71 and ’72, a victory at Atlanta Motor Speedway in 1971 and the 1972 Daytona 500. Foyt and Mario Andretti are the only two drivers to win both the Daytona 500 and Indy 500.
A.J. Foyt is credited with 128 NASCAR starts from 1963 to 1994. Along with his seven wins Foyt has 10 poles, 29 top 5 finishes and 36 top 10’s. For the inaugural Brickyard race, Foyt qualify 40th, completed 156 of 160 laps and finished in 30th spot.
