Brickyard 400 Pre-Race/Start

SPEEDWAY, IN - RIS - July 23, 2017 -

Brantley Gilbert Big Machine Brickyard 400
Indianapolis Motor Speedway
24th Annual Brickyard 400

Today's weather has turned around from this morning's showers and we now have blue skies with big white clouds.  The track is dry and we're ready to go racing!

Pre-Race Activities:
Driver introductions are complete and the Indiana National Guard performed an excellent rendition of "America the Beautiful".  Reverend Howard Brammer delivered the invocation.  Carly Pearce performed an excellent rendition of our National Anthem, capped by a flyover by four US Navy F-15C Eagles from Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base, New Orleans.  Brantley Gilbert delivered the command of "Drivers, to your cars" and Tony Hulman George delivered the command, "Drivers, Start Your Engines!"  Jeff Gordon is driving today's pace car, a 2017 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1.  This will be the first Brickyard 400 in which he will not be participating as a driver.

The pace car pulls off and we have a green flag!

Kyle Busch takes off and immediately opens up a significant gap on the rest of the field.  We have some early jockying going on around the track.

By lap 2, Kyle has opened up almost a 1 second lead over Kevin Harvick.

Lap 3 order:
18, 4, 78, 1, 21, 31, 44, 11, 20, 77, 24, 14, 22, 5, 2, 19, 17, 88, 3, 42, 27, 37, 6, 95, 48, 32, 10, 43, 47, 13, 7, 34, 38, 23, 55, 33, 72, 66, 15, 51

Jimmie Johnson had to start at the end of the field, after changing the rear gear after finding debris within it.  Jimmie is already up to 25th after starting 40th

Lap 5, lead is 1.975 seconds, field is starting to spread out with only occasional passes.  

Lap 7:  IMS is reporting severe weather is developing and 30 minutes away.  Radar looks very orange to the northwest of the speedway.

Lap 10 we have a yellow flag as the 23 car (Corey LaJoie) is limping back to pit road after hitting the wall in Turn 3.  LaJoie is headed to the garage.

Some cars come onto pit road for adjustments only.  No fuel allowed because of the upcoming competition caution on Lap 20.

Red flag is forthcoming as lightning is spotted in the area.  Getting spotters and photographers from atop the speedway to safety.  The pace car leads the field down pit road.  IMS posted a weather alert and the fans are taking cover.  The weather is expected to pass over fairly quickly and then we'll resume after it passes.  Wow!  Just a half hour ago, the skies were blue with white clouds!  Now we have dark clouds filling the sky approaching the speedway from the northwest.

3:00 pm Eastern:  We are on hold until the storm passes and IMS dries the track (if needed).

4:30 pm Eastern:  NASCAR is calling drivers back to their cars.