Kyle Larson emerged the winner of the NASCAR Cup Series’ return to the Brickyard at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday (July 21), following a controversial finish in which a caution flag didn’t immediately fly for a crash on the backstretch.
Adam Cheek and Vito Pugliese break down their thoughts on the finish, as well as Todd Gilliland‘s stellar performance, the return to the Indy oval and more.
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Adam Cheek joined Frontstretch as a contributing writer in January 2019. A 2020 graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University, he covered sports there and later spent a year and a half as a sports host on 910 the Fan in Richmond, VA. He's freelanced for Richmond Magazine and the Richmond Times-Dispatch and also hosts the Adam Cheek's Sports Week podcast. Adam has followed racing since the age of three, inheriting the passion from his grandfather, who raced in amateur events up and down the East Coast in the 1950s.
Vito is one of the longest-tenured writers at Frontstretch, joining the staff in 2007. He’s been a contributor to several other outlets, including Athlon Sports and Popular Speed in addition to making radio appearances and podcast appearnces here on Stock Car Scoop and Happy Hour. He forever has a soft-spot in his heart for old Mopars, late model Fords, and is generally a warehouse of useless automotive information.
All I’m going to say is that NASCAR isn’t otherwise known as NASCHEVY because they don’t’ help Chevy or their favorite team/hero moneybags Hendrick, win when possible. That’s exactly what occurred yesterday.
And when Gibbs wins, the fans say Toyota has NASCAR in their pocket.
Sawyer said if they had thrown the yellow flag, when they lined up again Blaney would have started on the outside, exactly as he did. Per Rules. They always say per Rules don’t they lol I wonder how many actually know the rules. Bet it’s a very small number.
The actual number of “rules” is non existent!
Yeah, your right sadly. Nascar took no cars back to r&d last week. Wonder if they will ever take bubba’s.
I wouldn’t be surprised that Bubba gets good finishes in a JGR car. Just like I’m not surprised that Kyle Busch is getting bad finishes in a RCR car.
There is an age old rhetorical question with regards to racing; What’s more important the driver or the car?
Well here you have an example….
An average driver in a top tier car vs. a winning driver in a second tier car.
You make the call.
I’ve said for years that a good driver in a good car will win races, a good driver in a bad car will do better than the car deserves and a bad driver in a good car is still a bad driver.
The driver who caused the GWC caution should be banned forever for being an idiot for driving back onto the track. If he had stayed where he was he would have been out of the way and not needed the caution flag.
Great recap, Adam and Vito; sad situation with how the race ended, though.