My First Brickyard

By Jason Jarrett

My Indy experience has been very limited. This weekend is my fist trip to the Brickyard 400. Before the weekend I have had very little exposure to the Brickyard. A few years back I was doing a couple of media activities and had the pleasure of going to the Museum. Even that day I did not get to spend much time at the track. My next trip to "the big track," as I remember calling it when I raced at Raceway Park back in 2000, was just a few weeks back when I attended the Nextel Cup testing days at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. I did not feel anything exceptional about IMS at the test session but testing is not exciting no matter what track it is. Besides one of my all time best memories comes from this track and I was not even here. I will get to that a little later.

Since arriving on Thursday I have realized just how huge this track and this event are. There are some things that I have seen from atop the pagoda. We are spotting from the pagoda in the center of the track so during the down time I have made some observations. You may or may not know that there is part of a golf course inside the track. I believe there are four holes inside the track that run down the infield part of the backstretch. I am sure they show it on television. The neat thing about it was watching people playing golf during the other activities that were going on at the track on Saturday. The second thing that caught my attention was that the track has had a couple of bands in the infield area. I am sure this goes on outside of every track we travel to but it is neat to see the people enjoying themselves by listening to music, drinking, and eating right next to the Nextel Cup Series garage area. Normally, these activities are separated. This is one of the few places that can accommodate these activities. This place is huge. There are fans watching on from every possible place that they can edge themselves in. They can’t see much of the track from inside but they are waiting and watching to catch a glimpse of there favorite drivers. This place just has a totally different feel to it and I am not sure what that difference is. Maybe these are different fans than I am used to seeing. Maybe it is that more people have better access at this track. Maybe it is just the Brickyard.

I know that all attention will turn to the race track when the green flag falls but until then the festivities will continue.

Although this is my first live Brickyard 400 I do have a great memory about the 1996 Brickyard 400. Many will remember that 1996 was my dad’s first Brickyard victory. Of course I remember it for the obvious reasons such as: dad winning one of the biggest events in racing and just the fact that dad won was exciting. All of that is normal but it sticks out in my mind because of where I was that day. I was racing at Hickory Motor Speedway. The Brickyard was run on Saturday afternoon back then and I just remember sitting in my late model stock car that day as one of my crew guys came to the window and told me that dad had just won the Brickyard 400. Talk about a little motivation! I remember being so pumped that afternoon and that night as I raced. The weird thing is I don’t even remember where I finished that night. It doesn’t really matter but I find it strange that I remember so much about that day except for how I did. Dad went on to win again in 1999 along with the Championship. Unfortunately, I also remember the year that dad had a good shot at another Brickyard 400 victory but fell short because of running out of gas and losing a couple of laps.

Although I don’t have memories of being here for years, this place has been so good to dad that I still have great memories of Indy through his experiences. Well, let’s see how the day goes and I hope everyone enjoys the race.

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