Writing from Speedway, Ind.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Fifteen years ago at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, hardware store tycoon John Menard had the worst day a car owner can experience at a race track. Scott Brayton, Menard’s driver in the Indy Racing League, was killed in an accident at the Speedway less than a week after he had won the pole for the 1996 Indianapolis 500.
Sunday, on the same race track, Menard experienced the ultimate high. Thirty-five years after getting into racing, he watched his son Paul, driving for Richard Childress, win the 18th Brickyard 400.
“There were a lot of good times along the way,” John Menard said Sunday. “Life’s a journey. It’s a long, hard journey, but I’ve enjoyed the journey very much.”
Getting to the finish line first – and doing so for the first time in NASCAR’s top series – was a thrill for Paul Menard, whose months of May in his formative years were largely spent at the track. It was even more emotional for his father.
“For Paul to get his first win here is unbelievable,” he said immediately after the checkered flag. “He’s followed this place all his life. I can’t believe it. I feel like I’m going to fall off this pit box.”
An hour later, the scion of Eau Claire, Wis., was still as thrilled as his 30-year-old son.
“I think Paul’s too young to be as happy as I am,” he said. “This is Paul’s day. I remember smuggling him into the garage. He had to be in the back and quiet or the Yellow Shirts (track security) would have thrown him out.”
Most all those years were spent watching open wheel cars run. Because of the multiplicity of short tracks running stock cars in Wisconsin, Paul Menard gravitated to stocks when he got behind the wheel.
“In Wisconsin, there’s no feeder series for Indy cars,” Paul Menard said.
So Menard jumped into late models and began running the bull rings of Wisconsin. Quickly, he moved up, and attracted the attention of Richard Childress, who had partnered in an Indy car team with John Menard way back. Menard, with Nibco and Menards as a sponsor, would drive Childress’ fourth Chevrolet-powered car this year.
The payoff has been considerable. For Menard, whose first taste of NASCAR’s top series was at Watkins Glen in 2003, it’s a nine-year overnight success story. For Childress, one of stock car racing’s most successful owners, Menard’s win brought him to victory lane at Indianapolis for the third time, following Dale Earnhardt in 1995 and Kevin Harvick in 2003.
“I remember the first time we came here (to test) in 1992, watching the cars come down the straightaway, and thinking, ‘Man, would it be cool to win at Indy,’ ” Childress said. “It doesn’t seem like we’ve come here for 18 years. I’m so proud of the whole Menard’s team. I knew if the right situation came along, they’d win. And I couldn’t be prouder for the Menard family. I know John and the passion he has for the sport. He had a dream, and today it came true.”
Paul Menard’s run to glory was not without drama. A pit road penalty on the first stop – a crewman let a changed tire escape into the merging lane – dropped Menard to 38th place and forced strategist Slugger Labbe to order a fuel-saving mode.
That was the plan throughout the remainder of the 160-lap race. Menard last pitted with 37 laps to go, and had to run the last 33 laps under green. Normally, a full fuel load can be stretched to 35 laps, so Menard had a bit of room to play with. And he played hard.
“As soon as the jack dropped, Slugger said, ‘Save fuel; long gears,’ ” Menard said. “It was easy on the throttle, easy off. I used less brake. I probably did a 20-lap span where I wasn’t even wide open, ran 8,500 rpm. If I would see Mark (Martin) catch me a little bit in my mirror, I would give it more. If I saw him back off, drop it back.”
All this occurred with Menard running in the top five. At one point, he took the lead when Tony Stewart pitted, but gave it up to defending champion Jamie McMurray on the track. McMurray passed Menard cleanly on the front straightaway on the 152nd lap, in comparison to the slight nudge Menard got from Matt Kenseth in the fourth turn on Lap 104. That one, Menard said, was his fault.
“I didn’t hear my spotter say he was inside me,” Menard said. “Luckily, he let me go. I had to check up.”
After McMurray’s move to the front, Menard needed to run him down while saving fuel, even as Jeff Gordon was closing rapidly. That would have been impossible if McMurray wasn’t also in a conservation mode. Five laps later, Menard got his chance in Turn 2.
“I knew it was going to be easier to defend than to pass when everybody took off,” McMurray said. “I tried to go hard in one corner and my car pushed so bad, he got back by me. From that point on, I was just conserving.”
Gordon was not. Three laps remained.
“I remember Jeff winning the first Brickyard 400 back in 1994,” Menard said. “Watched from a suite in Turn 4.”
Now the boyhood hero turned sage veteran was chasing the young man, and with vigor. He had been 11 seconds back with 11 laps remaining, and closed the gap to 5.2 seconds with six laps to go, when he was still fifth. And he kept coming, closing the gap to 3.5 seconds, then 2.62, then 1.37, and eventually getting by Martin and Regan Smith and McMurray to take aim at Menard.
Gordon was 99-hundredths of a second behind Menard, with nobody in his way, with two laps to go. Gordon, the four-time winner here, forever enshrined as the first winner, was surely going to capture a fifth Brickyard.
No, he was not.
Labbe radioed Menard: “Take off.”
He did. Menard had saved so much fuel, he was able to floor it for the final five miles, holding Gordon off and having enough gas left to do donuts on the front straightaway after the race.
“I just ran as hard as I could,” Gordon said. “We got there just a little bit short. Paul had saved enough fuel that he could get back to a full pace.”
Menard extended his lead from .688 seconds on the penultimate lap to .725 seconds at the checkered flag.
Gordon was disappointed at losing but appreciated what Menard was beginning to experience.
“Growing up here, he can appreciate his first win coming here,” Gordon said. “In 1994, it was a dream come true for he just running here. Winning here changed my life forever. It’s never been the same since. Paul’s going to experience the same thing.
“I was watching (the Indianapolis 500) from a distance. He was in the garage.”
Menard joins rookie Trevor Bayne, who won the Daytona 500, and Regan Smith, who won the Southern 500 (and finished third Sunday), as relatively unknown drivers who have captured marquee races this season on NASCAR’s top tour. Gordon, whose first victory was the 1994 Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway – the inaugural Brickyard 400, barely two months later, was his second – was once characterized similarly.
“This is not just a fluke,” Gordon said of Menard’s triumph. “They took a risk to save fuel, but in the end, I couldn’t pass him.”
Paul Menard is considered unemotional. It was hard for him to stop smiling on Sunday.
“This is the most emotion you’ll see out of me,” Menard said. “I saw my dad in victory lane when he came up to the window. I said, ‘You’ve had 35 years of trying here; here you go. This one’s for you.’ “
It took that long for a Menard to have the hardware to win at Indianapolis.
Around the Brickyard
The quote of the day belonged to frustrated Dale Earnhardt Jr., who, when things were going haywire at midrace, blurted out, “This whole f—— place is for Indy cars.” Really? Earnhardt finished 16th. … The crowd appeared smaller than last year, no more than 125,000 spectators. The upper deck of the main straightaway, coveted seats in the last, was more than half-empty north of the start-finish line. The first 10 rows of the mammoth lower deck was sparsely populated all the way to the first turn. Sections of the Turn 3 grandstand and the entire South Vista was were closed, and the North Vista wasn’t half full. There were fans who bought infield general admission tickets, but not a great deal of them. Last year’s crowd estimate was 130,000. The Speedway is expanding next weekend’s schedule to include a Nationwide Series race on Saturday and sport car racing on Friday night in order to boost interest. It has also lowered many ticket prices for 2012. … Paul Menard won $373,575 from the purse of $9,017,034 with his victory. His average speed was 140.762 mph, the race running 2:50.30. … Carl Edwards, who finished 14th, remains the leader in the Sprint Cup standings, 671 points ahead of Jimmie Johnson, who finished 19th. Next Sunday, the series returns to Pocono for that track’s second race of the season.
– Tim Cronin
