NASCAR is set for another race many consider a “crown jewel” on the schedule this weekend at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, with the Brickyard 400 back for the second year in a row following a three-year stretch of NASCAR’s trip to Indy instead involving a Cup Series race on the track’s interior road course, rather than the famed oval.

While Indianapolis is, by every measure, a superspeedway, it is not considered a drafting track, so the standard intermediate qualifying format is set to be used. Quite simply, there is one round of qualifying, and each driver gets one single-lap attempt around the four-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) Speedway, Indiana oval.

There are still technically qualifying “groups”, though I’m still not really sure why, seeing as how all the times are stacked up against one another, and unlike last year, there is no longer a second round shootout for the pole position. There is also no longer any kind of row-by-row lane designation based on group number.

The qualifying order was determined by the two-variable metric which was introduced ahead of the 2025 season, replacing the four-variable metric that was used from 2020 to 2024, including for last year’s Brickyard 400. A full breakdown of the new order can be found here.

Here’s a look at Saturday’s qualifying order, featuring 39 drivers after a total of four lineup changes were made following the most recent race weekend at Dover Motor Speedway.

NASCAR at Indianapolis: Full Brickyard 400 qualifying order

Indianapolis qualifying: Group 1

1 – Jesse Love, No. 62 Beard Motorsports Chevrolet

2 – Josh Bilicki, No. 66 Garage 66 Ford

3 – Katherine Legge, No. 78 Live Fast Motorsports Chevrolet

4 – Cody Ware, No. 51 Rick Ware Racing Ford

5 – Noah Gragson, No. 4 Front Row Motorsports Ford

6 – Carson Hocevar, No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet

7 – A.J. Allmendinger, No. 16 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet

8 – Cole Custer, No. 41 Haas Factory Team Ford

9 – Shane van Gisbergen, No. 88 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet

10 – Riley Herbst, No. 35 23XI Racing Toyota

11 – Todd Gilliland, No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford

12 – Daniel Suarez, No. 99 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet

13 – Ross Chastain, No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet

14 – Josh Berry, No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford

15 – Erik Jones, No. 43 Legacy Motor Club Toyota

16 – Ty Dillon, No. 10 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet

17 – Ricky Stenhouse Jr., No. 47 Hyak Motorsports Chevrolet

18 – Zane Smith, No. 38 Front Row Motorsports Ford

19 – William Byron, No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet

20 – Justin Haley, No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet

Indianapolis qualifying: Group 2

21 – John Hunter Nemechek, No. 42 Legacy Motor Club Toyota
22 – Austin Dillon, No. 3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet
23 – Ryan Preece, No. 60 RFK Racing Ford
24 – Austin Cindric, No. 2 Team Penske Ford
25 – Brad Keselowski, No. 6 RFK Racing Ford
26 – Michael McDowell, No. 71 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet
27 – Christopher Bell, No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota
28 – Joey Logano, No. 22 Team Penske Ford
29 – Kyle Busch, No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet
30 – Tyler Reddick, No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota
31 – Chris Buescher, No. 17 RFK Racing Ford
32 – Bubba Wallace, No. 23 23XI Racing Toyota
33 – Ty Gibbs, No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota
34 – Ryan Blaney, No. 12 Team Penske Ford
35 – Alex Bowman, No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet
36 – Chase Elliott, No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet
37 – Kyle Larson, No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet
38 – Chase Briscoe, No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota
39 – Denny Hamlin, No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota

Layne Riggs Key Takeaways

• Stage One: 1st / Stage Two: 1st / Race Result: 1st

• Layne Riggs earned his second win of the 2025 NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series season last night at the Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park. Leading 160 of the 200 scheduled laps, Riggs swept the stages before capturing the checkered flag. Friday night’s win marks the fourth career win for Riggs and fourth Truck Series win for Front Row Motorsports in 2025.

• “This truck was absolutely flying today,” said Riggs. “Dylan (Cappello), the entire team, and everyone back at the shop in Mooresville brought me a rocket ship—it made my job easy. It’s awesome to get Clew Nicotine Pouches to Victory Lane in just their second race with us. This track is special to me. I made my first Truck Series start here in 2022, and my dad ran his first Truck race here back in 1999. To come full circle and grab the win here is just really cool.”

Chandler Smith Key Takeaways

• Stage One: 3rd / Stage Two: 5th / Race Result: 7th

• “Today was a solid points day for us,” said Smith. “We gave up a few spots on pit road, but overall, it was a strong run for our first race back after the break. Big congratulations to Layne (Riggs) and the No. 34 team—they were definitely the best truck out there.”

FRM PR

There is something that is not quite right about doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. This brings to mind the NASCAR race on Chicago’s lakefront streets for the past three years.

Since the city of Chicago and NASCAR agree there will be no race in 2026, that gives everyone a chance to take a deep breath and start thinking outside the box or, in this case, outside the makeshift road course that doesn’t seem to make anybody happy.

How about a NASCAR Festival at Navy Pier or even at McCormick Place? Think Chicago Auto Show but for NASCAR devotees and all kinds of car geeks. Giant screens showing historic NASCAR races and highlights. Cars, drivers, pit crews, vendors, entertainers and even sponsors could be showcased over a couple of days along our magnificent lakefront. Navy Pier has tons of space outdoors and inside. McCormick Place already has a blueprint for showcasing cars and trucks, plus all the neat car stuff you can imagine.

If the whole purpose of what transpired in Chicago over the past three years was to build the NASCAR brand and get Chicagoans to fall in love with everything NASCAR, while bringing revenue to the city, then think what a festival could do. More people could possibly attend. Chicago’s weather would be much less of a factor. There could be ample opportunities to let folks actually touch the cars and listen to, or talk to, those who are devoted to everything NASCAR.

The people on both sides who are responsible for what will happen here in 2027 have ample time to figure out the actual opportunities and costs without shutting down a single street.

— Susan Burritt, Chicago

Goodbye, NASCAR

After learning that NASCAR decided not to return to Chicago in 2026, my first reaction was: “Yeah!”

My second reaction was: Thanks for returning Grant Park back to Chicago.

My third reaction was: Now let’s return the Taste of Chicago to Grant Park in July, when it is supposed to be, and let’s return it to at least a full-week schedule and with more activities, like it used to be, and not the measly, reduced-size, three-day weekend as is scheduled this year.

And also, let’s return the Fourth of July fireworks to the Grant Park lakefront instead of the out-of-the-way, hard-to-get-to, overcrowded Navy Pier.

— Mario Caruso, Chicago

National park visitors

In their July 23 op-ed (“How do we help America’s national parks? Make global visitors pay more”), Tate Watkins and Sharon Suiwen Zou advocate making international visitors to our national parks pay higher admission fees. They embrace the administration’s “America First” policy under the pretense of generating more revenue to “sustain our most treasured public lands for visitors of all types” — you know, those foreign types!

This is the same administration cutting national parks staff, looking to open up parks for private development and starting global tariff wars (with many countries that have been America’s biggest source of tourism). How do you think that’s going to play out? Want to visit the Eiffel Tower, the Vatican or Tower of London? Oh, you’re an American? You have to pay more.

America’s 85 million acres of national parks are places where everyone is welcome to experience the natural beauty of the United States. Raising fees for global visitors would drive more tourism away than add any meaningful funding for the park system. Throughout our history, presidents, Congress and leaders of industry have protected and invested with pride in keeping national parks pristine and accessible. They didn’t scheme to make a land grab for mining minerals, drilling for oil or building condos.

This isn’t about budgetary constraints or political correctness. It’s a foreign policy message. Let’s not hide behind “America First” and wind up “America Last.”

— Lindsay Resnick, Chicago

Church’s inclusivity

Thank you for the article regarding Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church (“Will Pope Leo XIV forge greater LGBTQ+ inclusion?” July 20). Our Lady of Mount Carmel has been a keystone of LGBTQ+ inclusivity for decades.

I remember 40 years ago turning to the church after an egregious life event and was welcomed by one of the deacons there, who not only was empathetic but also invited me and my partner to the rectory and his own home. I will never forget this kindness and the empathy extended to us!

Thank you so much for highlighting this wonderful community inclusion.

— Jeff Hale, Chicago

Great sundae place

Thank you for the “Sundae school” article in the Wednesday Food & Health section. My wife and I went that day to the Karak Cafe on Ogden Avenue in Lisle to congratulate them on their being highlighted in the article and try the Dubai chocolate sundae that was featured. The very friendly and gracious family there was unaware of your front-page section article but was pleased that we let them know about it. Also, the Dubai chocolate sundae is not on the cafe’s posted menu, but fortunately, it is available upon request.

— John Edinger, Burr Ridge

Mass transit woes

Why did I sit on a bus bench recently for over an hour, contemplating the dire future of our planet that is heating up at an alarming rate? I’ll tell you why: because no bus came, neither a city bus nor a free bus, while a thousand cars and trucks trundled by or stopped to idle noisily at a red light before continuing on.

Four other people joined my vigil, each staring at their phone, naturally. Every person I asked about a possible arrival time for the bus had a different version: five minutes, 12 minutes, 14 minutes, etc. Finally, a fifth soul came along whose phone told her that the bus was “canceled.”

I don’t mind that I simply walked back home without completing my little shopping trip. I do mind that we should be cutting down on traffic, thereby helping prevent dangerous air pollution. We encourage people to take public transportation to help save our planet. But who wants to take buses and trains that can’t be relied upon? And can we blame people for taking their cars knowing they can make three or four stops in an hour and still be home by lunchtime?

Future public transportation is going to have to be some kind of wonderful if we have any hopes of reducing the number of cars and trucks on the streets of our cities.

— Kathleen Melia, Niles

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

Friday was a special day for Stewart Friesen, who was both celebrating his 42nd birthday and making his 200th career start in the NASCAR Truck Series .. and it almost had a storybook ending.

Friesen utilized an alternate strategy, taking his final set of tires early in order to gain track position. He had the lead for the start of the final stage, and held that advantage until Layne Riggs made the pass for the win with just over 50 laps to go.

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However, Friesen held strong, finishing third after leading 20 laps. Unfortunately, the No. 52 Halmar-Friesen Racing Chevrolet did not pass post-race technical inspection.

Friesen’s truck failed front height checks, as it was too low. As a result, he has lost his third-place finish and all stage points he scored on Friday night. Officially, he will be credited with a last-place finish (35th).

The disqualification moves newly crowned regular season champion Corey Heim up to third, Grant Enfinger fourth, and gives Ty Majeski a top five. Chandler Smith is now sixth, Daniel Hemric seventh, Tyler Ankrum eighth, Ross Chastain ninth, and Rajah Caruth snags the final spot inside the top ten.

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Friesen is the tenth different driver to face a post-race disqualification across all three national divisions this year.

The team will appeal the penalty, claiming the failure was “caused by a part malfunction that occurred during the race by circumstances out of our control.”

Read Also:

Layne Riggs wins NASCAR Truck race at IRP in dominant showing

“It doesn’t sit well with me”: Why Kyle Larson wants to run the Indy 500 again

Denny Hamlin says new JGR contract extension “most likely” his last

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