Chase Briscoe says NASCAR's product at Indianapolis is 'worst-case scenario'

The racing in the Brickyard 400 on July 26 was not good, to put it lightly. 

There were no passes for the lead that were unrelated to pit stops, and many drivers found themselves stuck immediately after a restart with no way of moving through the pack thanks to dirty air. 

Joe Gibbs Racing driver Chase Briscoe, an Indiana native who loves the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Brickyard 400 said Thursday on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio that the NASCAR racing product at IMS is far from ideal.

Chase Briscoe weighs in on racing at IMS

"It's definitely been a rough go these past couple years," Briscoe said. "I'm the biggest fan of the place there is, and I think it's no secret that the racing has been pretty tough at the Brickyard. I want to say it was [2024] there was a lot of passing at the end because of everybody fuel saving."

While the Indianapolis 500 is almost always a good show, NASCAR has never been able to match IndyCar's product at the Speedway. But the Next-Gen car, which debuted on the Indy oval in 2024, has only exacerbated NASCAR's poor product at the track, which has only one lane and forces drivers to run directly in the wake of the car in front of them. 

"It's kind of truthfully just worst-case scenario," Briscoe said. "I feel like this is how the track is as far as, it's obviously one lane. You have to run right on the bottom. There's no other option with the banking or everything else. In the Next-Gen car, it's probably the worst aero car if there's only a one groove racetrack. The Next-Gen thrives at tracks that are really wide where you can run wherever, because you can go cand get clean air. 

"At Indy, there's just nowhere to do that. You're just stuck in the wake of the car in front of you. You don't get these crazy huge suck-up moments down the straightaway to make moves. Something has to be done just for the quality of the racing at Indy."