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Brickyard 400 Preview

The Crown Royal Presents the Jeff Kyle 400 at the Brickyard at Indianapolis Motor Speedway is the 20th race on the 2015 Sprint Cup Series schedule.

There have been 21 races in NASCAR's premier series held at Indianapolis. The series has competed there once each year since 1994.

 width=One year ago, Jeff Gordon won the Brickyard 400 for a record fifth time. Gordon moved into a tie with Formula One legend Michael Schumacher for most race wins at this historic track. He won the inaugural Cup Series race here in '94. His other victories at Indy occurred in 1998, 2001 and 2004.

Gordon is in his final season of Cup competition, driving the No. 24 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports. He has yet to win a race this year.

Bobby Labonte and Gordon are the only drivers who have competed in each of the previous 21 Cup races at Indianapolis. Labonte is not entered in this year's event.

With seven races to go before the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship begins, Gordon holds one of the provisional spots in the 16-driver field. He is currently 10th in the point standings and has scored three straight top-10 finishes -- Daytona, Kentucky and New Hampshire.

Right now, Kyle Busch is the hottest driver in the series, winning three of the last four races, including the previous two. Busch missed the first 11 Sprint Cup races this season after he suffered a fractured lower right leg and left foot during an accident in the Feb. 21 Xfinity Series season-opener at Daytona. He returned to competition two months ago and has started in eight points-paying events since.

Busch, the driver of the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, is presently 33rd in the standings and trails 30th-place David Gilliland by 58 points. Busch must finish in the top-30 in points when the regular season concludes on Sept 12 at Richmond in order to qualify for the Chase. By winning at Kentucky and New Hampshire, he has gained 70 points on the 30th position in just two races.

In 10 Sprint Cup starts at Indy, Busch has finished in the top-five three times and in the top-10 eight times. His best finish here is second, which occurred twice, most recently in 2014.

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