The late Bryan Clauson is known as a three-time Indianapolis 500 starter, a four-time United States Auto Club national champion, a National Sprint Car Hall of Fame inductee and an organ donor. But when it comes to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s dirt-track race that bears his name, Clauson has been referred to as “the adult” who helped launch the BC39.
Ten years ago this week, IMS President J. Douglas Boles honored retiring NASCAR champion and two-time Brickyard 400 winner Tony Stewart with the debut of a temporary dirt track inside the historic oval. Clauson was among those Boles consulted with, and he was invited to drive one of the USAC midgets during the promotional stunt.
Many on site that day got caught up in the excitement, asking to see an exhibition race of sorts staged on the one-fifth-mile oval. Offers of up to $2,500 to win were ponied up.
“I loved the idea,” Boles said earlier this week.
Clauson pumped the brakes and pulled Boles aside to voice his concerns.
“He said, ‘This is a terrible idea,’” Boles said of Clauson. “He said, ‘This has been a great day, people have thought it was cool and it gives us an opportunity to talk about building a facility here. But if we race right now, we’re all going to become (competitive) race car drivers, and we’ll hurt somebody. It will be ugly, and we’ll never have another opportunity to do this again.
“So, let’s figure out how to do it right.’”
Boles curbed his in-the-moment enthusiasm and agreed with the 27-year-old native of Noblesville, Indiana, and that conversation kick-started the planning for what became the first USAC Midget race held inside the IMS oval, in 2018. The heat races and 39-lap feature race were held with support from the Indiana Donor Network.
“Bryan was right,” Boles said of Clauson’s calming influence. “The bummer is, we didn’t get to have Bryan here to race.
“But the reason this track and this event is here now is because Bryan was the adult that day who encouraged us to take our time and do it right.”
Clauson joined Stewart and former USAC and INDYCAR SERIES driver Sarah Fisher in turning laps that July afternoon, but he never got to race on what became known as The Dirt Track at Indianapolis Motor Speedway because he died of injuries suffered in a crash in a midget race three weeks later in Belleville, Kansas. But the race lives on in his memory, complete with some of IMS’ original bricks mounted on the wall.
The BC39 Presented by Avanti Windows & Doors, a name which honors Clauson and his favorite race car number, will be held for the eighth time Tuesday, June 30 and Wednesday, July 1. Racing begins at 7 p.m. ET each night. Tickets are available at IMS.com.
Boles calls the race “my second-favorite day of the year – right behind the Indianapolis 500.”
Past winners include Brady Bacon (2018), Zeb Wise (2019), Kyle Larson (2021), Buddy Kofoid (2022), Justin Grant (2023) and Cannon McIntosh the past two years.
Later in July, the USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship will compete in a points race for the second time at IMS when the opening night of USAC NOS Energy Drink Indiana Sprint Week Presented by K&N takes place Thursday, July 23.
Adopted Hoosier Jeff Gordon, who won the inaugural Brickyard 400 at IMS in 1994, has never competed in the event, but he drove a midget in demonstration laps in 2021. Earlier this week, Gordon’s one-time crew chief, Ray Evernham, got to experience the track with Gordon’s former car owner, Rollie Helmling, on hand.
“I (took) pictures and send them to Jeff,” Helmling said. “I’ll tell him Ray was a second faster.”
Clauson’s father, Tim, was there for Evernham’s laps just as he was for his son’s, for Stewart’s and Gordon’s.
“That was one of my two favorite days ever at a racetrack,” Clauson said of the 2016 test. “It was racers building a dirt track in their backyard between two trees and rippin’ it.
“You could feel the way the energy was going. To this day, I can picture Bryan and Doug walking out to look at (the track), and it wasn’t that much longer that it became real. To see what it’s grown into and what it’s meant to short-track racers is remarkable.”
It’s a race and a track that celebrates short-track racing while remembering Clauson and promoting the Indiana Donor Network’s campaign.
“It’s something we can keep talking about, not just Bryan as a racer but the decisions he made that inspired what has happened long after,” Clauson said.
