INDIANAPOLIS — For all the anticipation building ahead of Sunday afternoon’s green flag for the return of one of NASCAR’s crown jewel events to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s oval, there’s one element drivers across the Cup paddock can largely agree on.

The debut of the Next Gen car on the oval after three years on the road course includes an eye-popping 11 drivers’ Cup debuts on the course but not many in the paddock are expecting wholesale changes when it comes to the on-track product – for better and for worse.

“The race probably isn’t going to be great from a passing standpoint, but that’s okay, because it hasn’t been super stellar in the last 10 years,” 2020 Cup champ Chase Elliott told reporters Saturday. “But I think being here is a big deal.”

That ‘here’ though means far more than just being inside these hallowed gates.

Since Tony George persuaded his grandmother to give NASCAR a shot after decades of holding a single race each year in May, culminating in the 1994 Brickyard 400, stock car racing has played a central role in IMS’s history. It’s been here ever since, through sold out grandstands, rainouts and the infamous Tire Debacle. That will not change.

But not since 2019 have race fans sat in the IMS grandstands and watched stock cars trundle over the Yard of Bricks going counter-clockwise, making left turn after left turn – 640 of them in all – while largely running in a single-file parade that has become this race’s trademark.

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“It’ll be extremely difficult to pass (on Sunday),” said NASCAR veteran Denny Hamlin, whose career resume stands nearly complete, minus a championship and a Brickyard 400 victory. “You’re going to have to temper expectations. We don’t want to paint a gloomy picture by any means, but certainly it’s going to be a different type of race with strategy and fuel (compared to other Cup races).

“I think we have the potential on starts and restarts to be somewhat crazy, but once we get single file, that’s the way we’ll stand for quite a while.”

'Next Gen cars don't like one-lane racetracks'

That wasn’t supposed to be the case.

After the Cup series had already run IMS’s road course in 2021 as part of a tripleheader weekend with the Xfinity series and IndyCar, the thought was NASCAR’s new car model for its top-tier series would have a serious chance to give the stale, single-file racing on the IMS oval a refresh. Shortly after it debuted in 2022, there was legitimate anticipation for Penske Entertainment and the France family pulling the plug on the IMS road course experiment and bringing the Cup cars back to where most of the field’s drivers felt they belonged: on the big track.

Even before the start of last year’s third Cup road course race in three years, the fact that NASCAR was headed back to the IMS oval in 2024 was one of the worst-kept secrets in racing. A race that had lost its ‘crown jewel’ status when it was moved to the road course would be revitalized.

Hamlin says that’s not been the case.

“I thought so too, but the corner speeds are up just a little too high,” he said. “If you wanted us to really have drafting down the straightaway, we’d have to be under the tires slightly more in the corners. We’re about 10 mph too quick to see the type of racing you have in IndyCar.

“Next Gen cars don’t like one-lane racetracks, and short of putting (traction compounds) PJ1 or resin in the top lane – and there’s no way they’ll touch this surface. That’s just not going to happen.”

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His viewpoint after Friday’s 50-minute practice, where cars largely ran in loosely strung-out groups to best simulate what drivers predict NASCAR’s return to the oval would be, was widespread. Bubba Wallace, who drives for Hamlin’s 23XI Racing team he co-owns with Michael Jordan, called the Brickyard 400 “the biggest track position race of the year”, noting, “I just hope the race is good, but I think that’s going to be a big ask.”

Brad Keselowski, the 2018 winner who delivered Roger Penske his first – and so far only – Brickyard 400 victory, lamented Friday that the Cup field was all too likely to get back into “some of those old headaches.”

“But I think we kind of learned that that’s not necessarily a bad thing. That’s part of what made Indy ‘Indy’, right?” he continued. “So I think it’ll be interesting to see how it plays out, but it’s not going to be an easy race.”

A glimmer of optimism

The old guard’s pessimism isn’t wholly unanimous. Brickyard 400 first-timer Chase Briscoe, an Indiana native who won the Xfinity series IMS road course race in 2020, enters Sunday believing there will be a significant level of the Next Gen car’s ‘race-y-ness’ that can translate in the return to the IMS oval.

“This is going to be totally different than anything any of us have ever experienced here,” he said. “The old car, we struggled to run side-by-side in the corner, and when you’d come to a racetrack like this, it was extremely hard, even on a restart, and you’d have to get single-file as soon as you can. With the Next Gen car, that’s the one thing it does really well.

“We can run side-by-side for five six laps sometimes, literally door-to-door with each other, and the car side drafts so extremely. I definitely think that restarts are going to be unlike anything we’ve experienced at IMS.”

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To an extent, 2023 Cup series IMS road course race-winner Michael McDowell said he agrees.

“Yes, any time you come here and test, or even practice, it’s going to be one lane. We know it’s going to be that one particular line, but as we get in restarts, and as we get racing side-by-side, the track takes rubber, and you normally can move around a little bit,” he said. “I do think (most of the racing) will be the same, but I don’t see any trend with this Next Gen car that would tell me that it’s going to be one lane versus two (on restarts).

“The preferred lane is still going to be the bottom, but you should be able to go through the corner side-by-side. I do think it’s just going to take a little bit. This is a precision racetrack, and when you make adjustments in the car, you’re just trying to move 3 or 4 inches – not 3 or 4 feet. So here, I think it’s going to be fun with this far because it responds so well. You should be able to race and dice it up a little bit more.”

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Watch out for the restarts where 'it's easy to make a mistake'

Drivers do largely agree that because of the Next Gen car’s nimbleness, restarts may be as chaotic as ever. As with the past, they may be the only times a driver fighting for position can actually pick up a spot. But perhaps slightly more easily than in years’ past, they say, crafty drivers may actually be able to dial them up proactively, instead of having to wait for a car in front to make a mistake.

With more cars trying to actively jockey for spots and make moves, instead of playing a patient waiting game, it could be the recipe for an even larger number of mistakes when the field is largely packed up.

“It’s going to be tricky. I think discipline and not putting yourself in a bad spot will be super important,” Sunday’s polesitter Tyler Reddick said. “It’s going to be easy to make a mistake and cause an accident, so you’ve just got to keep your eyes out for that.

“I think we’ll get through Turn 1 okay, but Turn 2 is going to be sketchy. I don’t know what’s going to happen after that. The speeds we’re carrying into Turn 1 won’t quite be full-speed, but once you get over to Turn 2, it’ll be a bit more – and Turn 3 might be even worse, but then we’ll kinda single out and spread apart.”

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That being said, Reddick clarified, Sunday’s race isn’t one where he’d expect a car from several rows back to be able to carry a run past several rows up into the lead, The Next Gen car’s profile on the IMS oval comes both with an ability to tow and a fair amount of dirty air to battle, he said.

“Certainly, if you take five of the strongest cars and line them up, it will be really hard for the guy in 5^th to make a charge and get through all of them,” he said. “You still sometimes are going to be counting on someone to make a mistake and get too aggressive, lose the nose or get loose to really be able to make a move.

“But it’s easy to make mistakes, and when those mistakes happen, drivers will have opportunities to pass.”

A changing of the guard

For some drivers though, the level of action on-track Sunday comes secondary to the fact that the premier level of stock car racing will finally return to a track so much of the grid thinks it should never have left. The shift onto IMS’s road course for 2021 came with the arrival of Penske’s new regime that was willing to roll the dice and experiment on one of IMS’s foundational events that had been bleeding fans down to around 50,000 or less.

That fresh take on one of NASCAR’s four crown jewel events did indeed deliver an uptick in attendance – up above 60,000 each of the last two years. With the return to the oval Sunday as part of a celebration of Jeff Gordon and Hendrick Motorsports’ win in the first Brickyard 400 30 years ago, IMS says it expects to host as many as 70,000 fans Sunday – a 10% increase year-over-year and its highest race day attendance since at least 2017.

Drivers’ excitement levels match the off-track hype.

“I’ve always said I don’t care what we’re racing on; I just want to race at IMS, whether it’s the road course, the oval, or the dirt track,” Briscoe said. “But I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t more significance, history and meaning running the oval.

“I didn’t know if I would ever get a chance to run a Brickyard 400, so to be able to do that this year is something that’s really special. It means a lot to me.”

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Briscoe is one of the 11 drivers making their Brickyard 400 debut Sunday, including Austin Cindric, Ty Gibbs, Noah Gragson and Josh Berry. They'll share the grid with just three former Brickyard 400 winners: Keselowski, Kyle Busch and Jimmie Johnson.

In that same vein, six notable drivers who started the last Cup on the IMS oval will be absent from Sunday’s grid, including three who were still active just a year ago – two-time-defending race-winner Kevin Harvick, 2013 winner Ryan Newman and series veteran Aric Almirola. None would’ve been able to guess in 2020 they’d be making their last Brickyard 400 start.

“I always thought we were going to come back here (to the oval) one day. I was just never resigned to the fact that the road course was going to be a permanent thing,” he said. “But I just didn’t know how long my career would go at that point. I was 40 (years old), and so I don’t have that many chances left. It’s less than what’s on my hand, so you just have to take advantage of every opportunity.

“(Winning) is a big emphasis for me because it’s a big gaping hole in the resume.”

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: NASCAR Cup drivers enter Brickyard 400 return with mixed expectations