Carson Kvapil bagged his first O’Reilly Series win at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. But amid the emotional celebration, he sparked a frenzy online with his celebration on the iconic yard of bricks. Sure, the IMS faithful have sentimental value attached to the track, but the backlash the young driver received wasn’t fair, according to Jordan Bianchi.
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“I get it. This is Indianapolis. I get it. You’ve got to be protective of the bricks and all of these things. I get it. But to sit there and like this, if this was a veteran that had won here before and should know better and hadn’t won his first career race and all of these things, fine. Criticize him. He made an honest, genuine mistake. Dale Jr. apologized. Carson apologized. Let it go. There’s no need to like sit there and point fingers and beat this kid up on social media at all.”
Jordan Bianchi on the latest episode of The Teardown podcast believes the backlash directed at Carson Kvapil has gone far beyond what the situation deserves.
For a driver who’s climbed his way up from CARS Tour to O’Reilly Series, this win at Brickyard meant so much more. He earned it the hard way too. Kvapil passed Ross Chastain for the lead on Lap 79 of the 100-lap race and never surrendered it. Justin Allgaier charged into second on Lap 94 and closed to within 0.283 seconds at the white flag. However, Kvapil held firm over the final circuit to win by 0.643 seconds.
With emotions running high after such a breakthrough, Bianchi believes the burnout was simply an inexperienced driver’s mistake rather than an intentional act of disrespect.
There was also an important detail that many fans overlooked. Indianapolis Motor Speedway has long instructed drivers not to perform burnouts on the Yard of Bricks. NASCAR also did send that reminder to the team during the cool-down lap. However, Carson Kvapil never heard it because his radio had already been disconnected. Nevertheless, the young driver immediately owned the mistake afterward.
“I looked at that about 20 minutes after the race, and I was like, uh, probably wasn’t good. I was unplugged (from the radio), so I have no idea if they said anything or not. Yeah, I made a little bit of a mistake there, probably.”
JR Motorsports owner Dale Earnhardt Jr. also accepted responsibility. “Our apologies. The driver was unplugged from his radio when NASCAR sent the reminder. Lots going on when that all went down. Certainly regret any inconvenience.”
This was hardly the first celebration on the bricks to generate controversy. Justin Allgaier performed a similar burnout back in 2018. Add Kyle Busch (2018) and Jimmie Johnson (2012) to the list, so Kvapil isn’t the first one to get overexcited with his celebration at Indy.
Burnouts on the Yard of Bricks should be avoided given the historical and sacred values. But as Bianchi argued, there’s a difference between deliberately ignoring that tradition and a first-time winner getting caught up in the biggest moment of his career.
In his view, both Carson Kvapil and Earnhardt Jr. acknowledged the mistake, apologized, and accepted responsibility. And this makes the continued criticism completely unnecessary.