| | For all the money that will be handed out at Indianapolis, for all the race fans who will pack into the mammoth 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway, for all the clout that goes along with winning the Brickyard 400, more so than any of that, racing at Indy has become NASCAR's course in cultural diversity.
As the population of Winston Cup racing has become more sundry -- welcoming drivers from different backgrounds and different upbringings -- so too has the schedule.
|  | | Jeff Gordon, who excelled in the open-wheel ranks while growing up in Indiana, has two Brickyard 400 wins. |
Indianapolis -- The Speedway as Tony Stewart calls it -- is the intersection at which racing philosophy diverges.
Going one way are those who grew up racing Chevrolets, Fords and Pontiacs with fenders on the weekends at short tracks across the country. For those drivers, Indianapolis is just another stop on a grueling schedule that happens to pay an awful lot of money.
For the open-wheel drivers who have made their way into Winston Cup racing, Indy is their Daytona, representing the race of the season and the chance of a lifetime.
"Indy means as much to me as Daytona does to everybody else," says Stewart, a native of Rushville, Ind., a 45-minute drive from Indianapolis. "(The Brickyard 400) is never going to take the place of the Indianapolis 500, but it's very important for me to win there in a Winston Cup car."
John Andretti has the Indianapolis name. His uncle, Mario, is an Indy legend. Even though John Andretti's path carried him to Winston Cup racing, he still gets goose bumps thinking about winning at Indy.
"Start asking drivers to compare the Brickyard 400 and the Daytona 500, and the answer is going to be different depending on who you ask," said John Andretti. "My whole life has been the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but it's not the Brickyard 400 but the Indy 500.
"The Daytona 500 is the dream of every stock car driver. Am I supposed to alter my dreams, or have others alter theirs? I don't know. To me the Indy 500 is still very important, but I think that anything that happens at Indy is big. In importance, it will change with each individual driver, but just the fact that you can ask this question shows you how important Indianapolis is."
Kyle Petty and Andretti are Winston Cup teammates from different necks of the woods.
Petty's whole life has centered around NASCAR, particularly Daytona, where his father, Richard, won the 500 seven times. The North Carolina natives know that for a stock car racer to place his name alongside the greats, is it absolute that he win at Daytona.
"The Brickyard 400 will be as big as Daytona if they ever cease to run Daytona," said Kyle Petty. "It's like golf. Will the Greater Greensboro Open ever be as big as the Masters? No, there is not that much history there. The Brickyard is a big event because it pays a lot of money, but there is not a lot of tradition there for us, not for the Winston Cup cars.
"There is a tremendous amount of tradition there for the Indy cars and the CART cars. It's the first year for the Formula One cars and the IRL cars have been there. It's a big place for Winston Cup to be, and it gets bigger every year, but most of that is because of the winner's purse."
Petty has welcomed the open-wheel talent into NASCAR with open arms. He just isn't about to welcome their race track into the same class with Daytona.
"To me, it's just another race, but more money. Don't get me wrong, it's a big deal to win -- a really big deal to win. There are other races, though, that in the total scheme of Winston Cup racing that are just as big too," said Petty. "When you look at Daytona, and you see the winners list -- Fireball Roberts, Richard Petty, Buddy Baker, Junior Johnson, Dale Earnhardt, and guys like that -- for the last 30 to 40 years that they have run Daytona.
"When you look at Darlington and see the same names, it's pretty impressive from the history of the sport. It's like having your name on the same list as Babe Ruth for home runs. Then you look at Indy and there are only four or five other drivers. It is impressive to be on the same list with Ricky Rudd, Dale Jarrett, and Jeff Burton, but in 40 years it will be a lot more impressive.
"It is big, but it's not the be all-end all right now."
Phil Furr, a freelance writer based in Charlotte, N.C., writes a weekly auto-racing column for ESPN.com.
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