When Bill France Jr. and Tony George got together to announce The NASCAR Brickyard 400, it was like sending an earthquake through two racing worlds. The year was 1993 when NASCAR president Bill France Jr. and Indianapolis Motor Speedway president Tony George made the announcement. The NASCAR Brickyard 400 would be a stock car race, set up at a track with so much tradition and integrity; there was an honest concern that the race would hurt both the Indianapolis Speedway and NASCAR. Fast forward a decade and a half to 2008. The NASCAR Brickyard 400 is now a premier stock car event played out each year at the legendary Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
The original name of the event was simply “Brickyard 400” and eventually became known as the NASCAR Brickyard 400 because it was a NASCAR event. The name of the race comes from the history of the racetrack itself. As far back as 1909 the Speedway has held the nickname of the “Brickyard” when it's 2 ½ mile track was made of 3.2 million bricks. In remembrance of that history, there remains a single strip of bricks appropriately named the “yard of bricks” at the start/finish line of the track. NASCAR, or the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, itself started as a mainly Southern event back in 1948 with Bill France Sr. The history of stock car racing goes back to the 1930's when the moonshine runners had to outrun tax officials to avoid paying tax on moonshine. When the government left the runners alone, they raced each other. And this racing would grow into a series of events sixty years later that include such races as the Daytona 500 and the NASCAR Brickyard 400.
For trivia buffs, there is some interesting trivia about the NASCAR Brickyard 400 race. When the race was first held in 1994, the NASCAR Brickyard 400 became the first race other than the Indianapolis 500 to be held at the Speedway since 1916. The first running of the NASCAR Brickyard 400 had a crowd of more than a quarter million people. In 1996 Dale Jarrett and his crew started the tradition of the race winner kissing the bricks at the end of the race. This tradition has carried over to the Indianapolis 500 as well. Maxim magazine voted the NASCAR Brickyard 400 one of NASCAR's top races. In 2003, Kevin Harvick made himself the first driver to win the NASCAR Brickyard 400 from the pole position. Two years later in 2005, Tony Stewart became the first native son of Indianapolis to win a race at the Speedway since 1940. In 2007, Juan Pablo Montoya became the first and only driver to race all three major events held at the Speedway; these being the Indianapolis 500, the Formula One U.S. Grand Prix and the NASCAR Brickyard 400.
In 2005, with major sponsorship being secured, the NASCAR Brickyard 400 was given a minor name change. That year, the NASCAR Brickyard 400 was renamed the “Allstate 400 at the Brickyard”.
