Rick Mast Reflects On ’94 Brickyard Pole
INDIANAPOLIS — If you’re ever in the middle of a high-stakes game of trivial pursuit and you’re stumped on a NASCAR question, do yourself a favor and just guess Rick Mast, chances are you’ll be right.
As the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series heads to Indianapolis Motor Speedway this weekend, Mast’s name will likely come up at some point as the answer to this historical question.
Who won the pole for the inaugural Brickyard 400 in 1994?
Driving for car owner Richard Jackson in the No. 1 Skoal Ford Thunderbird, Mast outdueled the likes of Dale Earnhardt, Rusty Wallace, Bill Elliott and Jeff Gordon to grab the top spot for an event that was unlike any other in NASCAR’s rich history.
“The excitement started building in the garage area as soon as they made the announcement we were going to race at the Brickyard,” recalled Mast. “To me, it hit fever pitch when we went to the tire test and they estimated a crowd of 50,000, which was probably right. I have never seen so many people in my life just to see a bunch of cars practicing.”
For two years leading up to the race, teams focused on every detail because the car count was going to be high and the concern for possibly missing the race even higher.
“Everybody prepared. I never saw the total garage area prepare so long for one single lap,” said Mast. “It used to be that Daytona was a big deal. You’d go down there testing all the time in the winter preparing for that qualifying lap, but it seemed Indy was like that times 10 for two years.”
When qualifying day finally arrived there were 86 cars lined up to take their shot at history. Mast’s Ford was one of the fastest in practice, and he felt the car had a legitimate shot to land the pole, but a brief rain shower before qualifying changed the entire complexion for everyone. That’s when the wily Mast worked his way through the garage to find the man who knew more about the track than anyone, A.J. Foyt.
“I got to know A.J. pretty well because we shared the same sponsor, so I went over and told him what my car was doing and he kind of told me what to expect,” said Mast. “We made some minor adjustments, and when I made the qualifying lap the car was on a rail. It just stuck.”
His speed of 172.414 mph set the bar during the early parts of single-car qualifying, which meant there was a long wait while the remaining drivers tried to beat it.
“It seemed like it took three days to run all those cars,” laughed Mast. “Richard was torn all to pieces. He couldn’t sit down, he couldn’t walk, he couldn’t talk. He knew what it was all about and what it meant for Skoal and Ford.”
Mast calmed his anxiety by sitting on a bench in the garage area and closing his eyes. As the session ended and his car number was still on top of the famous speedway scoring pole, the events of the past year ran through his mind and the relief spilled from his body.
“We had been with Oldsmobile and switched over to Ford in 1994. That was our first year and you’ve got to understand that in those days Ford had powerhouses,” said Mast. “We were stepping in as a new team in the Ford camp and it was incumbent on me to try to justify Ford’s involvement with us. I was so wanting to prove ourselves to Ford in some capacity, and when I sat on the pole at Indy it gave me some big satisfaction. It was a very, very big deal in my eyes for Ford to do that and that’s not sugar-coating anything. That’s just the way it was at the time.”
The ensuing press conference was met with laughter and fun when those in the media who followed the sport on a full-time basis asked Mast to recount how he got started in racing for the benefit of those covering NASCAR for the first time.
Which NASCAR driver traded a cow for his first race car?
Source :speedsport.com
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