Indy oval’s return restores a crown jewel to NASCAR schedule

Jeff Gordon wishes he could remember more details from his first Indianapolis victory.

It has been 30 years since that day, Aug. 6, 1994. A milestone that is pretty amazing to Gordon, who laughs about his lack of memory.

Gordon will go down in history as NASCAR‘s first winner at Indianapolis — an event with so much hype and publicity as stock cars descended upon hallowed ground for open-wheel competition. Gordon, in his recognizable rainbow No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, led 93 of the race’s 160 laps.

“I remember more of the feeling and the energy of seeing so many people riding around on the pace lap,” Gordon told ESPN. “When you start competing, you’re only thinking about your car, executing the race, and the competitors and how you’re racing them. I think I got pretty good applause during driver introductions, which was very cool. I was still new to NASCAR and grew up in Indiana. I wasn’t sure what kind of support I was going to get. So to get that applause and go out and compete at that level, you could get a sense when we were leading the race toward the end of the crowd reaction.

“That was highly motivating to me. And when the race was over to see how many people stuck around cheering for me, it was a life-changing experience. Those types of feelings and the energy and support will be something I’ll never forget.”

Gordon went on to win four more times at Indianapolis, but there is nothing like the first considering NASCAR at the Brickyard was once a far-off dream.

The Speedway is sacred to open-wheel purists, who did not want to see stock cars — or “taxi cabs” as some critics would call them — compete at the track where the Indianapolis 500 is held. Tony Hulman, who bought Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1945, kicked NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. off the premises when the latter visited in 1954.

By the 1990s, though, something began to change. Tony George, then-track president, welcomed the idea of NASCAR competing at the track. By 1992, the stock car series held a tire test at the Speedway with a select group of drivers, and a year later, NASCAR held an open test at Indianapolis for more than 30 of its teams.

“It was the most hyped racing event that possibly I’ve ever been a part of,” Gordon said. “I’ve never seen that many people show up in support of a test and a race. It was chaos. But it was amazing chaos…