2011 Brickyard 400
The 2011 Brickyard 400 presented by BigMachineRecords.com, the 18th running of the event, was a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series stock car race held on July 31, 2011 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indianapolis, Indiana. Contested over 160 laps on the 2.5-mile (4.0 km) asphalt rectangular oval, it was the 20th race of the 2011 Sprint Cup Series season. There were five cautions and 22 lead changes among 13 different drivers throughout the course of the race. Paul Menard won his only Cup Series race, driving for Richard Childress Racing, while Jeff Gordon finished second, and Regan Smith clinched third. The result moved Menard to the 14th position in the Drivers' Championship. He remained 53 points behind tenth place driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. and two ahead of Kasey Kahne in fifteenth. Chevrolet maintained its lead in the Manufacturers' Championship, 20 points ahead of Ford and 28 ahead of Toyota, with 16 races remaining in the season. A total of 138,000 people attended the race, while 6.4 million watched it live on television. Report Background Indianapolis Motor Speedway is one of six superspeedways to hold NASCAR races, the others being Michigan International Speedway, Auto Club Speedway, Daytona International Speedway, Pocono Raceway and