Indianapolis Motor Speedway is steeped in nearly 100 years of history, by far the oldest racing facility in the country and ready to celebrate its centennial next year in 2009.

For Sprint Cup teams, however, it's just 15 years old, and still the subject of some trepidation for the men whose job it is to set up the cars for the unique challenge of a fast, long and very flat course that features four separate near-90-degree turns.

“

The thing that makes Indy unique is that it's so fast. To be that big, that fast and that flat makes it very unique.

”

ALAN GUSTAFSON

Alan Gustafson, who is the shot-caller for Casey Mears and the No. 5 Chevrolet out of the Hendrick Motorsports stable, is one such gentleman.

"It is a very unique track, and flat, but there are other tracks that we race on that are just as flat," Gustafson said. "The thing that makes Indy unique is that it's so fast. To be that big, that fast and that flat makes it very unique.

"It's very aerodynamically biased," he said. "Anytime you run that type of speed, aerodynamics is very critical. That was certainly the case with the old car, and with the new car, I think that will still be the case, but we can't tailor the bodies the way we used to."

While Indy is very much an aero track, there are some other items that you need to be successful at the Brickyard, most notably the engine.

"Setup-wise, aerodynamics are obviously very important, and so is the engine," Gustafson said. "As big as the track is, horsepower is necessary, and you can't throw that out. Aero comes first, and mechanical comes second."

The layout is different enough -- four unique corners connected by short straightaways and two long straightaways connecting the south and north ends of the iconic speedway -- that it calls for some compromise in the setup, Gustafson explained.

"You look at Turns 2 and 4, you have to get into and off of those corners well, because that dictates your straightaway speed," he said. "With those long straightaways, that's obviously very important. You want to get through all four corners as best you can, but if you don't get off Turns 1 and 3 as well, you only pay the price for the short chute, which is a much smaller segment than the long straightaways.

"Getting off 2 and 4, getting off those corners well, is very important, and the shape of the corners is very similar, but the entry speed to each is very different. Getting into Turns 1 and 3, you're carrying a lot of speed so that changes the balance of your car. In 2 and 4, you've slowed down enough so you're not carrying that much speed."

Carrying a lot of speed into a corner is usually a good thing -- if you're at Talladega or Texas. At those tracks, the banking eats up a lot of it and helps the car turn. With the way the new car turns at the best of times, hardly any banking at all is a problem.

So, that means the cars at Indy this weekend will be carrying much bigger brake packages than before.

"You use more brakes at all the tracks with the new car, so Indy isn't going to be any different," Gustafson said. "You're still going to have to slow these cars down. The gear rule (teams have a choice of two rear gear ratios each weekend) contributes more to that, as well. Brakes are going to be more of an emphasis at Indy than they have been in the past.

"Even with the old car, we were using more and more brake there, because we were getting through the corners better and better. You're going to have to make sure the brakes are good and will stay with you all day long and are really good and consistent for the driver."

Gustafson compared calling a race at Indy to calling one at Pocono, another 2.5-mile track with a unique layout.

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"It's very similar," he said. "Track position becomes very important, and it's almost harder to pass at Indy than it is at Pocono. You want to call those races almost like a road course. If you stayed out for a full fuel run and a bunch of guys come with 20 laps to go, then you're in trouble.

"But if you are a 25th-place car, why not take the gamble? You do call the races where track position is more important than tires, fuel is important, and fuel mileage, so you can make some things happen by staying out and not pitting."

Indy's pit road was designed for lighter, smaller IndyCars, not for big, heavy stock cars, and that's a fact that Gustafson is well aware of, thank you very much.

"Pit road is very tight," he chuckled. "Any pit road we have where there's a wall between the track and pit road, it makes it very tight. The advantage is to pit down toward Turn 1 where you can get in and out of your pit box and other cars can't pull in front of you and break your momentum. That's the key.

"Besides getting in an accident, which is very easy to do, and with the pit strategy we talked about -- two tires, fuel only, four tires, you'll see all of them --it's easy to get in a wreck. It's easy to have somebody pulling out when you're pulling in and vice versa, and messing your car up. The further down toward Turn 1 you are, the easier it is to make it to that line where the track opens up and you don't have to worry about it."

Gustafson also is calling the race and the shots for a driver whose family has more than a passing acquaintance with the Brickyard. Mears' uncle Rick won four Indianapolis 500s during his career as one of the greatest IndyCar drivers of all time, and his father, Roger, is a veteran of the May classic, as well.

Might that make for some special emphasis at the Allstate 400?

"He's been going there for a long time and his family has some history at Indy, so I know it's an important place to him, but at the same time I think it's important for all of us with the history of the track and its importance to racing in general. Everybody wants to win there.

"You put a lot of emphasis on the race, and with Casey, it's just that much more important."

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