Sunday marks the 30th anniversary of the Brickyard 400 and for the first time since 2020 a full 400-mile race. The very first Brickyard 400 ran August 6th, 1994, and for some, they may recollect it was hot. The race ran during the opening week of August for the first 13 years, and that is typically when the heat is at its peak during the summer in Central Indiana.
The average high temperature for the opening week of August is 85° with the hottest on record 103° set in 1918 on August 5th. Remarkably all the record high temperatures for the opening week of August were set at or more than a century ago!
It just seems that this race runs when it is hot.
There have only been five races run when the temperature reached or exceeded 90°. The dates of the race started to shift into late July and even ran as late as September in 2018 and 2019. The hottest Brickyard 400 on record came August 4th, 2002 with a high temperature of 96°. The most recent, July 5th, 2020, with a high of 94°
The very first race, August 6th, 1994, only reached a high of 73° and ties with July 28th 2013 for the coolest on record.
