2011 Brickyard 400
| Race details | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Race 20 of 36 in the 2011 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series | |||
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| Date | July 31, 2011 | ||
| Location | Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indianapolis, Indiana | ||
| Course | Permanent racing facility 2.5 mi (4.0 km) |
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| Distance | 160 laps, 400 mi (643.73 km) | ||
| Weather | Mostly sunny with a high around 90; wind out of the NNW at 4 mph | ||
| Average speed | 140.762 miles per hour (226.534 km/h) | ||
| Pole position | |||
| Driver | Roush Fenway Racing | ||
| Time | 49.182 | ||
| Most laps led | |||
| Driver | Kasey Kahne | Red Bull Racing Team | |
| Laps | 48 | ||
| Winner | |||
| No. 27 | Paul Menard | Richard Childress Racing | |
| Television in the United States | |||
| Network | ESPN | ||
| Announcers | Allen Bestwick, Dale Jarrett and Andy Petree | ||
The 2011 Brickyard 400 presented by BigMachineRecords.com, the 18th running of the event, is 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 the race, the first win of his Sprint Cup career, 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.
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 Talladega Superspeedway. The standard track at Indianapolis Motor Speedway is a four-turn rectangular-oval track that is 2.5 miles (4.0 km) long. The track's turns are banked at 9 degrees, while the front stretch, the location of the finish line, has no banking. The back stretch, opposite of the front, also has none. The racetrack has seats for 250,000 spectators.
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