Whether IndyCar or NASCAR, A Good Race Is a Good Race

INDIANAPOLIS When they go stock-car racing, The Show's the Thing.

And the first Brickyard 400 was quite a show, from preracefavorite Dale Earnhardt's brush with the wall on the first lap to thepostrace rush of excitement from 23-year-old Jeff Gordon after thelast lap.

"People up here," one NASCAR crew member on his way out of theIndianapolis Motor Speedway said, "have never seen anything likethis."

Well, people up here who have watched eight decades of Indy 500shave seen close finishes before. They have seen their favorites runinto the wall. They have seen more than 300,000 fellow fans stand inunison at the excitement.

But they never have seen …