So last Saturday night I was sitting around with leftover pizza, flipping through old racing stuff on my laptop. Totally bored, whatever. Then I remembered this dusty folder called “NASCAR Stats” – bingo! Scrolled down and saw “2010 Brickyard 400.” Figured, hey why not? Grabbed another slice, fired up the spreadsheet.
First thing I did was plug in all the driver names from that race. Man there were like 43 drivers! My fingers got numb typing Jamie McMurray, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kevin Harvick… all the big shots. Had to open a second soda halfway through, seriously. Then I hunted down their finishing positions – some random racing forum had the full list thank god.
The Real Work Started Here
Now came the annoying part: figuring out who actually had a shot at winning. Just finishing high doesn’t mean they fought for the lead, right? So I dug into the lap leader data. This took forever – kept mixing up who led when. Nearly spilled pepperoni grease on my keyboard twice!
Stared at the screen until my eyes burned. Finally saw the pattern. Only a handful really battled up front:
- Jimmie Johnson (obviously, won the thing)
- Greg Biffle (led a bunch early, hung around)
- Tony Stewart (local boy trying hard)
- Kevin Harvick (typical Harvick, just lurking)
- Carl Edwards (never led but crawled into contention)
Biggest shock? Jamie McMurray. Dude started way back in 22nd! He was practically invisible until – boom – final laps. Suddenly he’s right on Johnson’s tail. My jaw dropped seeing his climb on the chart. Not even close to winning though, ended up eleventh. Wild!
What Actually Went Down
So after wasting three hours of my life piecing this together: Johnson dominated late, Harvick snatched second last minute, and poor Greg Biffle faded like warm soda right when it mattered. Typical plate racing chaos, just at Indianapolis instead. Edwards sneaked into fourth somehow while Stewart got squeezed down to fifth. Whole thing felt messy – like my pizza-stained notes by midnight.
Funny enough, biggest takeaway wasn’t in the data. It was realizing how hungry I got staring at Carl Edwards’ sponsor: Aflac. Damn duck made me crave orange chicken at 1 AM. Went hunting for takeout instead of sleeping. That’s the real 2010 Brickyard legacy for me now.
