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In a terrible race for fans due to poor track design, the Verizon 200 at the Brickyard turned into far-too-long finish which saw an unexpected winner in A.J. Allmendinger. Allmendinger was a +2000 underdog to win the race at DraftKings Sportsbook.
The scheduled 82-lap race turned into a 95-lap marathon thanks to the multitude of restarts. The green flag dropped just after 1 p.m., and it was well after 5 p.m. when it was finally over.
On a green-white-checker restart after a long delay for track repair, Denny Hamlin was the first to Turn 1 on the road course, but a crash forced the caution to come out once again. Michael McDowell went airborne in eighth, and took out a good portion of the field behind him.
.@Mc_Driver, @austindillon3 and others spin, bringing out the caution flag. pic.twitter.com/NKMG7MTfd8
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) August 15, 2021
On the second green-white-checker, Chase Briscoe was in second and ended up in the grass after the first turn, and was assessed a stop-and-go penalty. But before he did that, he spun out Denny Hamlin and it appeared to be intentional.
.@dennyhamlin spins after contact with @ChaseBriscoe_14! pic.twitter.com/ogaOETTy80
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) August 15, 2021
The setup between Turns 5 and 6 was pretty bad, and it caused most of the issues late in the race. It’s something we’ll likely see fixed from Nascar before they return to the infield in Indianapolis.
- A.J. Allmendinger
- Ryan Blaney
- Kyle Larson
- Chase Elliott
- Matt DiBenedetto
- Kurt Busch
- Erik Jones
- Justin Haley
- Austin Cindric
- Ryan Newman