NASCAR Cup Series cars line up for a restart at Indianapolis Motor Speedway during the Brickyard 400

Brickyard 400 Preview: Hamlin's Missing Crown Jewel

July 25, 2026

Brickyard 400 This Sunday at Indianapolis: Can Denny Hamlin Finally Get His Missing Crown Jewel

Welcome to the Happy Hour Racing Race Preview - the storylines, the drivers to watch, and what to keep your eye on before the green flag. The numbers and our pick live in Friday's Track Preview. This is the human side of Sunday.

The Short Version

The Brickyard 400 presented by PPG runs this Sunday, July 26, at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, with the green flag at 2:00 PM ET on TNT. This is a crown jewel, one of the biggest days on the calendar, and it carries two fights at once. Denny Hamlin comes in as the points leader chasing the one big trophy missing from his career, and Ryan Blaney and Todd Gilliland go head to head for a one million dollar bonus. If you tune in for one race in the middle of summer, make it this one.

The Big Storylines Heading In

Start with Denny Hamlin, because he is the story. Hamlin has won three Daytona 500s, three Southern 500s, and a Coca-Cola 600. The Brickyard 400 is the only crown jewel he has never won. Win it Sunday and he joins a club of just four drivers who have swept them all: Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt, Jimmie Johnson, and Kevin Harvick. He has been close and it has hurt. He led 21 laps in 2024 before crashing out, then rallied from a backup car to finish third last year. He is also the hottest driver in the sport right now, with four wins and a series best in laps led through 21 races, and he holds a 68 point lead over Tyler Reddick at the top of the standings. The man has everything but this.

The rest of the field has its own reasons to care. There are five races left in the regular season, so this is prime time for a driver on the bubble to punch a playoff ticket with a win. Joey Logano already grabbed one last week, winning at North Wilkesboro to become the first driver to win a points race there since Jeff Gordon in 1996. Toyota has been the manufacturer to beat, winning 12 of the first 21 races, and the last four oval wins in a row. Hendrick Motorsports, meanwhile, is trying to bounce back from a rough night at North Wilkesboro where all four cars finished multiple laps down for the first time since 2002. Indy has always been a Hendrick track, so Sunday is a chance to reset.

The Pagoda control tower and front straightaway at Indianapolis Motor Speedway — The Pagoda over the Yard of Bricks. Whoever crosses that stripe first Sunday takes home a crown jewel. (Photo: Zach Catanzareti Photo, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

The Drivers to Watch and Why

Kyle Larson. Larson is winless through 21 races, which feels wrong for a two time champion who leads the series in stage points and sits sixth in the standings. He keeps showing race winning speed and keeps coming up short. Indy is where that could change. He won the 2024 Brickyard and finished second in 2025, and he is the only Hendrick driver with a top two here in the last two years. If Larson is going to break through, this is the kind of weekend where it happens.

Bubba Wallace. Do not sleep on the defending winner. Wallace scored the first Brickyard win of his career here last year, and Indy has quietly become one of his best tracks. He has run up front here since the Next Gen car showed up. He arrives with something few drivers have: proof he can win this exact race.

Ryan Blaney and Todd Gilliland. These two are racing a second race inside the race. More on that below, but Blaney is riding 11 straight top 11 finishes and sits third in points, and Gilliland is the underdog who will not go away. Watch where they run relative to each other all day.

Four reasons to have the Brickyard 400 on Sunday afternoon.

The Million Dollar Race Inside the Race

For the second year in a row, the Brickyard hosts the finale of NASCAR's In-Season Challenge, a 32 driver bracket that has come down to two. Ryan Blaney and Todd Gilliland are the last ones standing, and it is a classic mismatch. Blaney drives the No. 12 for Penske, sits third in the championship, and has been one of the steadiest cars all year. Gilliland drives the No. 34 Grillo's Pickles Ford for Front Row Motorsports and started the tournament as the 25th seed. He has knocked out bigger names round after round to get here. The rule is simple. Whoever crosses the Yard of Bricks first on Sunday wins one million dollars. They do not have to win the race, just beat each other, so watch for the moment late when one of them has to make a move.

What to Watch For on Sunday

Indianapolis is a strange, wonderful place to race a stock car. It is a flat two and a half mile rectangle with four tight corners and long straightaways, and it does not race like anything else on the schedule. Track position is everything. Clean air out front is worth a ton of lap time, and a car stuck in traffic struggles to pass even when it is faster. That puts the pressure on pit strategy. Crew chiefs will gamble on when to pit, whether to take two tires or four, and how to time the stage breaks to come out in clean air.

Then there are the wild cards. Late July in Indiana means heat, and a hot, slick track chews up tires and moves the grip around all afternoon. Rain is always a threat this time of year, and a wet forecast can turn a fuel and tire chess match into a scramble. Watch the restarts too. The run down to the flat first corner is where the day can unravel fast, and one bad launch can collect a handful of cars. In a race this hard to pass, one caution at the wrong time can decide the whole thing.

The Fan Debate

Here is the one to argue about at the watch party. Does the million dollar In-Season Challenge actually make a mid summer race matter more, or is it a made for TV gimmick that has nothing to do with a championship? Some fans love it because it gives every driver, even the underdogs, something real to race for in the dog days of the season. Others say the only trophy that should matter at a crown jewel is the crown jewel itself. There is no wrong answer, and Sunday is going to give both sides fresh ammo. Where do you land.

The Bottom Line

The Brickyard 400 is where legends get made and where careers get one box checked off the list. Denny Hamlin wants his missing piece. Kyle Larson wants his first win of the year. Bubba Wallace wants to defend. Two more drivers want a million dollars. That is a lot of story packed into one Sunday afternoon at the most famous track in the world.