INDIANAPOLIS — That very well could have been the entire season atomized into 20 laps for Michael McDowell and Chase Elliott.
Think of the dynamic.
McDowell entered the Verizon 200 at the Brickyard just three points behind Ty Gibbs for the final provisional spot in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs with Elliott facing de facto must-win odds over much of the summer and still looking for his season breakthrough.
Even Daniel Suarez, five points behind Ty Gibbs entering the weekend, played a factor in the story of the day. Naturally, the race came down to McDowell, Elliott, and Suarez approaching the final pit stops. Suarez had just booted Elliott out of the way but suffered a 24-second pit stop to fade from contention, leaving the other two potentially racing for their championship lives.
By the end, McDowell effectively ran the road course race of his life through lapped traffic and made the math really simple for everyone else hopeful to punch their tickets into the Round of 16, in that winning is increasingly their only realistic option.
14. Kevin Harvick +145
15. Brad Keselowski +143
16. Bubba Wallace +28
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17. Daniel Suarez -28
18. Ty Gibbs -49
19. Chase Elliott -80
20. Alex Bowman -80
Same conversation for Elliott each week
Meanwhile, Elliott is absolutely tired of this weekly narrative and conversation, and it’s hard to blame him. There are only so many ways he can answer the same questions about needing a win to avoid missing the playoffs for the first time in his career.
It doesn’t help his mood when misfortune strikes him in back-to-back races between a tire failure at Michigan or the perception that he was held up by lap down Mike Rockenfeller in the closing laps at the Racing Capital of the World.
Elliott lost by just over a second and the argument could be made that the same amount of time is what he lost running behind the Sports Car ace making his Cup Series debut in the Legacy Motor Club No. 42 — a fellow Chevrolet car.
Thus, it was no surprise that he held a matter-of-fact media scrum for the second post-race in a row, where the vibes said more than the words themselves.
“Michael did an outstanding job of getting through traffic and I didn’t,” Elliott said. “I gained a lot of time on him over those last couple of laps, but it was not enough.”
What was the chat with Mike like?
“It was fine.”
Was today a positive ahead of another road course next week at Watkins Glen?
“It was good to have pace and it’s always nice to have pace.”
That’s no gripe with Elliott because again, it’s just the same story with a slightly different coat of paint each weekend. He has to win, is keenly aware of that fact and knows he has a car that is getting closer to the front.
He’s just running out of time.
After covering a Late Model race in Michigan this past week, Elliott was clearly a different person away from the NASCAR environment because he could just be a racer with no underlying conversations about his playoff status.
From that standpoint, it’s easy to conclude that no matter what happens over the next two weeks, Elliott is just looking forward to some new normalcy, regardless of whether or not that includes a playoff berth. That’s not to say the pressure is somehow getting to Elliott because it’s probably not at this stage of his career, and he’s always taken an ‘it is what it is’ approach to racing.
Elliott is hypercompetitive and very much wants to win, as Rockenfeller can attest after Sunday, but no long-winded speeches to the media are going to make it happen.
Related: SRX overcomes crisis for signature Eldora finish
The return of the oval?
Sunday’s race was the first in the Cup Series on a road course to feature one or fewer cautions since Riverside in 1982.
Of course, part of that is NASCAR’s elimination of stage breaks on road courses for the 2023 season, something a subset of the audience clamored for in the name of creating strategic divergence and less straightforward races.
For the second road course race in a row, following Sonoma, it resulted in a one-sided butt-kicking.
This time, the conversation has the underlying narrative surrounding NASCAR’s future at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the industry expectation that the Cup Series will return to the venerable oval used during the Indianapolis 500.
There is a tire compatibility and aerodynamic package test scheduled for Monday and Tuesday, with speedway president Doug Boles saying that will ultimately decide if the Brickyard 400 returns to the schedule in 2024.
“The test is the next stage,” Boles told Sportsnaut after the race. “And then it’s sitting down with NASCAR and NBC and seeing what makes the most sense for us. The promoter in me would love to see us go back to the oval for the 30th anniversary of the Brickyard but this has been a great weekend.”
“I enjoy having NASCAR and IndyCar together, so we’ll see where it goes. Someday, in my mind, we’ll get back to the oval and it would be kind of cool if it would be next year.”
McDowell, who emerged on the national scene driving sports cars and Indy-style cars, is partial to road racing but understands why the oval is likely to return next year even if it’s against his selfish ambition.
“You know me, I’m biased,” McDowell said. “I want to run on as many road courses as we can, but I do understand the prestigiousness of running the Brickyard and being on the oval, and I do think that this NextGen car is going to put on a good race. It’s going to put on a better race than our previous generation car here.”
“I understand wanting to go back to the oval. All I’m asking is can we do both? Can we run the oval and the road course? Is that a possibility?”
Related: Michael McDowell, Front Row no longer NASCAR’s Cinderella after Indy win
International stars a non-factor
NASCAR Cup Series racing is really hard.
Sure, Shane van Gisbergen capitalized on a perfect scenario to win in his debut on the Chicago Street Course last month. Still, it was a completely different story on Sunday when SVG and a bunch of his international peers descended upon the historic Indiana venue.
Van Gisbergen finished 10th in the Trackhouse Project91, having overcome a sticky throttle from the start of the race, while Supercar rival (and points leader) Brodie Kostecki finished 22nd in a backup car prepared by Richard Childress Racing.
Making his debut for Legacy Motor Club for the suspended Noah Gragson, Rockenfeller finished 24th and a lap down after getting busted with a pit road speeding penalty early in the race. Jenson Button, the 2009 Formula 1 champion, finished 27th in his third Cup Series appearance for Rick Ware Racing powered by Stewart-Haas Racing.
International Sport Car champion Kamui Kobayashi finished 33rd in his Cup debut for Toyota’s 23XI Racing.
Van Gisbergen, who made his future Cup peers look silly on a wet street course, looked considerably more mortal on Sunday and conceded it too.
“Everyone’s expectations were high because of Chicago, but a top-10 is still awesome,” van Gisbergen said.
“I just had a ball. The racing was pretty tough. There was a lot more contact, pushing around, I got pushed out of the way by Alex Bowman but I blocked him, so he pushed me straight away, so hey, I learned pretty quickly not to do that so early.”
The three-time Supercars champion said he had a smile on his face all weekend, including his oval stock car debut in the Truck Series race at Indianapolis Raceway Park, where he learned to stop saying oversteer and understeer.
It’s loose and tight here.
His team owner, Justin Marks, who is also the leading candidate to sign him to a full-time deal next year says he was pleased with everything he saw from van Gisbergen.
“He wants to come over here, and he’s done everything he wants to do over there with three championships and he’s dealt with his first bit of adversity today because the engine wasn’t running right, he didn’t have great pit stops but still battled back to a top-10 finish,” Marks said. “His rate of adaptation showed me that this is a guy that can come in and be a star in this sport.”
“We’re working on a transition year next year, a lot of experience, track time in different divisions, and be really methodically and thoughtful about how we challenge him.”
Kobayashi said Sunday felt like a sprint race, and that he wishes he had more time in the car, and intends to seek additional appearances.
“This time was challenging, but I understand what I need to do, and I got quite good experience. Let’s see what happens. I think this experience was really amazing…because I always dreamed to race in NASCAR at one point when I was a kid. To bring me here is challenging for everyone, but we made it happen. Hopefully, I think we can explore even more in Japan about NASCAR. … I want to come back.”
Rockenfeller will come back, next week at Watkins Glen, specifically.
“I need to work harder, work on myself, my driving. My race craft was okay but my qualifying needs to be better. We could make the car better. So, there’s a lot of work ahead of us in the next few days and we’ll focus on that.”
NextGen’s people game
No, NASCAR isn’t going to have 16 winners this regular season, but the second-year Cup Series car continues to level the playing field in the way it was intended.
For one, consider the past three races, won by Chris Buescher of RFK Racing (Richmond, Michigan) and McDowell (Indianapolis Road Course) at Front Row. These were teams that had recently hinged its entire hopes for Victory Lane on Daytona, Talladega or Atlanta over the past decade.
Now, it’s conceivable that any team inside the top-30 could nail the set-up and execute with its driver on the way to winning anywhere on any given week.
Sure, the Cup Series is still largely dominated by the likes of Joe Gibbs Racing, Hendrick Motorsports and Team Penske but the gap has closed to the likes of Front Row, RFK and Trackhouse. Justin Marks, who owns Trackhouse with pop culture icon Pitbull, says the level playing field makes engineering slightly less important.
“Everyone has the same stuff, so it actually puts more on the people, the performance of the driver, the strategy and the pit stops,” Marks said. “There is so much more pressure on that than ever before now that we are not designing proprietary parts, like clips and all that stuff, so it’s all setup and execution.
“It’s a people game. I’m not surprised that it’s this way and while it makes the sport more difficult, it’s also an opportunity for a team like Trackhouse. I’ve said it a million times before: We invest in people and processes. So that we’re new and have been able to come in and immediately contend, that shows what this car allows.”
It’s the same for Front Row general manager Jerry Freeze, who has been here long enough to remember start-and-parking several cars and just aiming to finish on the lead lap with their one primary car.
Now they’re capable of winning races on any given week.
“Once we were able to start getting them on a more level playing field with the product that we were bringing to the racetrack, our performance started to pick up,” Freeze said. “I think you started to see that a guy like Michael McDowell had a lot of talent.
“Now if you give him the same car that these other guys have, he’s going to really show that he can get it done.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.