Brickyard 400, Rebooted

Well, here we are.

NASCAR is two-and-half years into the Next Gen era and, not counting exhibition or qualifying races, 93 points races are in the books.

It’s taken this long for what could arguably be — aside from short tracks — the biggest test of the sport’s big investment into future.

Can the Next Gen car make the Brickyard 400 exciting again?

And I don’t mean in a 2017 “all hell breaks loose in multiple overtimes resulting in Kasey Kahne winning” kind of way.

I mean a start-to-finish, compelling race for 400 miles.

It is possible.

All you have to do is look at the very first 400 in 1994.

Yes, the field was properly motivated to put on a show in its inaugural trip to the most famous race track in the world.

But there were 21 lead changes. And it’s never included in the highlight reels — which get boiled down to Jeff Gordon taking the checkered flag — but before Ernie Irvan cut down a tire in the final stretch, he and Gordon put on a solid show as they battled for the eventual win.

After 1994, the Brickyard wouldn’t see 20 or more lead changes until 2008 (26), which has a very important asterisk next to it made from the corpses of many failed tires.

Since then, it’s only happened twice, in 2011 (22) and 2013 (20).

I was there in 2011, when Paul Menard used pit strategy to best Gordon for his first and only NASCAR Cup Series win. That was my first NASCAR Cup race since 1999 and the first not to be held at Texas Motor Speedway, my home track.

Despite not being a native Hoosier, me and the Brickyard 400 have some history.

Two years after Menard’s win, I was in the stands again to see actual Hoosier Ryan Newman win. That was while I was on a trip to scout out potential living locations for grad school.

A year later in 2014, the Brickyard 400 weekend marked my first as a working journalist.

That weekend I got to cover the action as Ty Dillon won his first and only NASCAR Xfinity Series race so far while driving the historic No. 3 car.

Afterward, Dillon and his family and crew members had to flee the infield media center, as the area was drenched in a downpour of rain.

I still have the beer can that Dillon left behind at the podium in his escape attempt.

The next day, I was there as Gordon pulled off his fifth Brickyard win.

I still remember standing in the courtyard area behind the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Pagoda, watching as Gordon stood on a balcony,…