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Around this time every year, Rick Mast always receives more mail than he usually does.

At 67 years old, Mast lives much like anyone else does in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, going about his daily life in a manner that isn't strictly bound to what he once was. Then, it happens: The NASCAR Cup Series makes its annual visit to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and Mast's office is inundated with fan mail, autograph requests and messages from inquiring media members looking to speak with him. The way it has for the better part of the last three decades, including the last two since he went from being what he once was to what he is now.

"This was 30 years ago, and I'm still getting stuff. I've got a pile of stuff this week that came in, inaugural Brickyard stuff to sign," Mast said. "Which happens all the time."

In the grand scheme of NASCAR history, many remember Rick Mast as one of the Cup Series' rank-and-file drivers of the 1990s -- a respected journeyman with spurts of success here and there, but one who never won a race in 364 career starts and more often than not appears more in others' highlights than his own. But in the context of one of the sport's most prestigious races, and one of the most famous racetracks in the entire world, he has never been forgotten.

Mast was the polesitter for the inaugural Brickyard 400 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1994, forever making him the first fastest man in NASCAR competition at a track once reserved exclusively for the Indianapolis 500 and the drivers who competed in it, and the driver who led the stars of his era to the green flag in one of the most watershed and consequential events NASCAR has ever seen.

From the time 50,000 people attended a tire test for NASCAR stock cars at Indianapolis in 1992, the first running of the Brickyard 400 was anticipated at a once in a lifetime level. With NASCAR's popularity building and its appeal beginning to reach beyond the Southeast, the very first Winston Cup race at Indianapolis -- a place where the idea of one race a year was long sacrosanct and the sheer idea of stock cars on IndyCar's holy grounds was blasphemy -- was hyped for more than a year and a half as a race of the century, and perhaps as the most significant event in American auto racing since the end of World War II.

Speaking to CBS Sports ahead of this year's 30th anniversary renewal of the Brickyard 400, Mast stressed that the inaugural edition of the race was among the most significant things to ever happen to NASCAR, likening it to R.J. Reynolds joining the sport in the 1970s and the first live television broadcast of the Daytona 500 in 1979.

"You cannot overstate the significance of that event to NASCAR. You can't do it," Mast said. "If you go back in that time period, our sport, it was almost like a powder keg sitting there -- you had situations and momentum and drivers and interest and fans, everything was sitting there with our sport waiting for an igniter. And it was a perfect timing thing for our sport. 

"When Indy was done, it ignited this explosion that propelled our sport into the stratosphere for the rest of the '90s and on through the 2000s. It had set itself up for needing something like that."

To be a part of the first Brickyard 400 was to be a part of something monumental. And as it turned out, just being fast enough to be part of the field was a massive undertaking. Thanks largely to the inclusion of teams from the Winston West Series as well as IndyCar stars trying to defend their turf, a record 86 entries sought to earn the right to be among the 43 qualifiers for the race. Many months of testing took place, with Mast's Richard Jackson-owned race team discovering their car had the right stuff.

During one particular test session, A.J. Foyt -- coming out of retirement as a four-time Indy 500 champion seeking to make the field -- got into Mast's car to try and see what his own needed to be faster. Upon climbing out of Mast's No. 1 machine, Foyt made it explicitly clear to Mast just what he had under him at a track he had mastered long ago.

"I remember he got out of it and he said, 'I don't want to hear any damn excuses from you if you don't qualify or run up front with that racecar,'" Mast recalled. "'OK Boss Man, cool enough.'"

Come race week, Mast's team had hit their setup perfectly by the end of the final practice before qualifying. Not only was Mast among the fastest cars on the speed chart, but its balance was also perfectly neutral: neither too loose to go through the corners without getting sideways, nor too tight to navigate them without pushing towards the wall. Then it rained -- a bad development, as Mast had already found Indianapolis to be greatly sensitive to temperature and weather changes.

It was then, with the moment of truth coming up in qualifying, that Mast sought out Foyt's input.

"When it rained, we were kind of devastated because we didn't know what the track would do. So I go to my buddy A.J., I said, 'A.J., here's what my car was doing, it was dead flat neutral, hauling the mail. Now it's rained and I go out 12th, one of the earlier guys to qualify. What's the track gonna do?'", Mast recounted. "He told me what the track would do after the rain. So what we did, we came back and we made adjustments to the car based off of A.J.'s comments of what the track would do. 

"You're really shooting in the dark also, but we had tested there enough and practiced enough, we kind of knew how the car would be affected by different changes. A lot of times when you're racing and practicing, you're so far out in left field you're just throwing things at the racecar trying to get it to react and do things. But the thing that helped us was our car was so good that we knew what the changes would do."

Though thought to be at a disadvantage thanks to drawing an earlier spot in the qualifying order, Mast instantly proved his car was one of the fastest. Immediately after Dale Earnhardt posted the fastest lap of the session at a 52.409, Mast posted a lap of 52.200 (172.414 mph), knocking Earnhardt off the provisional pole and making him fastest among the first dozen qualifiers in an exceptionally long time trial session.

Mast was left to wait for what felt like an eternity, feeling his lap was good enough for a top-five starting spot but still uncertain what would happen considering the unknowns of a new racetrack and the caliber of drivers and teams still left to qualify.

"I never breathed a sigh of relief until the last car took the checkered flag. It's not just my mindset, but that's everybody's mindset in that series because it's so good and so competitive," Mast recalled. "And you had so many friggin' cars there, 83 or whatever it was, and you had our regulars and then you had another 40 cars of other guys. 

"And we're not talking about guys that just started racing. I mean, we're talking about the Danny Sullivans of the world, the people that were victorious at the Indy Speedway in the Indy cars. You never knew for sure what somebody might be holding back or what they had in their hind pocket or get a lucky lap or whatever."

There wound up being no surprises. Qualifying ended with Mast having won the pole for the very first Brickyard 400, an accomplishment met with far more fanfare than any pole in NASCAR history before -- and arguably, ever since.

Mast and his team earned $100,000 for winning the pole, which marked better money than it paid to win certain races at that time. They were also given a customized van estimated at between $50-60,000, and then began a two-day whirlwind of media obligations and being paraded all across Indianapolis as the fastest man for the Speedway's new tradition.

"Starting that night really until the race started, it was a whirlwind for me," Mast said. "I spent more time in the back of a deputy's car being chauffeured around that city ... I guess I saw more of that city than people that have lived there for 50 years have seen. We were always in a deputy's car and we always had another car and we had motorcycle escort. Everywhere we went, and we went all over that city. Didn't really hardly have time to come up to breathe.

"You're caught up in the moment of what's going on. You know you're in the middle of something that's very big and very special -- in your fleeting moments, you go that way a little bit -- but the main thing is always coming back to the center of the corner, and that's the racecar and what are you gonna do to try to win the race on Sunday. It goes back to that."

The publicity blitz was one of many indicators to Mast and the rest of the field that they were taking part in a monumental event. NASCAR's race weekend operations were completely different than usual, with the sanctioning body going from lords of their own domain to carefully respecting the rules and traditions of Indianapolis and instructing their drivers to do the same. Bill France Jr., usually not one to speak during the driver's meeting, addressed the field and made it clear -- specifically to the two drivers on the front row -- what the day meant and what was at stake.

"He got up there and talked about the importance of the event and this and that and the other," Mast said. "He finally looked and said, 'Guys, when they drop this green flag' -- and he looks straight at me and Earnhardt -- he says, 'When y'all go into Turn 1, do not embarrass our sport.' And he's looking dead at me and Dale. 

"In other words, 'Alright you bunch of dummies, don't go out there and wreck the first lap. Show that you are professional and you can get it done.'"

Perhaps France had a read on the situation at the front of the field. Earnhardt, the outside polesitter, was determined to lead the opening lap, become the first driver to ever lead a stock car race at Indianapolis, and assert his dominance as NASCAR's champion and top gun.

"Dale had told me, 'I'm gonna lead the first lap, Rick,'" Mast said. "And I'm like, 'Yeah, come on big boy, whatever.'"

Mast had already accounted for what Earnhardt would try to do, as his best shot to get the lead would be to pinch Mast off in the first corner and force Mast to yield. Mast instead held his ground, driving away to lead the opening lap as Earnhardt bounced off the Turn 4 wall and damaged his car in a last-ditch effort to reach the front.

With one lap led, Mast's focus began to shift to what he had to do to be in the same position on the final lap. Then, something went wrong in the motor: A valve train issue robbed Mast's car of its peak power, and he would lose the lead on Lap 3, never regain it, and finish a lap down in 22nd.

"The 160th lap was what was ingrained in my head for two days. 'What have we got to do to be this good at the 160th lap?' And that's all I had on my mind," Mast said. "So we led the first lap, I go down the frontstraightaway thinking that, and going down the backstraightaway I'm thinking, 'OK Rick, we're gonna ease up just a little bit. We'll keep these guys at bay behind us, but we're gonna ease up here and get to the end of this race,' because my car was that dominant. I felt it was. 

"Coming off the fourth turn, all of a sudden she loses power. And we run the rest of the day like that. In the moment, it was very, very disheartening. It was very dejecting. By the third lap of that race I went from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows. And it stayed that way the rest of the race."

Race day for Mast became one more letdown in what ended up being a mixed 1994 season. It was the best year of Mast's Cup career, as he earned a career-high four top fives and 10 top-10 finishes on his way to a career-best finish of 18th in the Winston Cup standings. But it was also filled with missed opportunities, namely through mechanical gremlins and circumstances that denied him opportunities to win. A left front shock at North Wilkesboro. A water pump gasket at Charlotte. A distributor at Pocono, an upper A-frame at Michigan, a camshaft at Atlanta, and an ill-timed late caution that sent Mast from certain victory to having to settle for second at Rockingham.

There were times where Mast questioned why such things kept happening to him. And in the end, he never broke through and earned a Cup Series win -- carbon monoxide poisoning forced him to retire midway through the 2002 season. But he did earn the respect of his peers, as he was regarded as a respected veteran driver capable of performing in the right situation -- something backed up by his nine career wins in what is now the NASCAR Xfinity Series.

"Being there 12 years or whatever and never won a points race, you still had viability. You still had good race teams that wanted you to be a part of their program, to be able to contribute at all," Mast said. "The people in the garage knew my capabilities, I felt like -- Well, I know they did, because you're not gonna keep getting these kind of rides if people in the garage don't think you're capable of getting it done.

"That's the one I can hang my hat on. I do know that for a fact. Stats don't show what really was going on there, but that's the way of life, man. I'm still here alive and kicking, my kids are doing well, and I'm happy."

If you ask Mast today, he still regards a sixth-place finish in the 1989 Daytona 500 as his biggest accomplishment given that it put him on the map and launched his Cup career. But by the mid-2010s, it settled in for Mast that his Brickyard 400 pole was forever, and that everything that continues to come with it -- the influx of fan mail, inaugural Brickyard 400 items sent for him to sign, and the annual media requests -- is central to his legacy in NASCAR and the way he is remembered.

Thinking in terms of his own life, Mast has come to put being NASCAR's first fastest man at Indianapolis in its own category. Even now, as he goes about his business as an ordinary man that once did extraordinary things, winning the pole for the very first Brickyard 400 exists somewhere that he refers to as "Magic Land."

"You have things in your life that happen and go on and achievements and goals you want to meet and all that, but sometimes you have things that are just magical," Mast said. "Like, the birth of my children was magical. I don't equate Indy to that, but the Indy deal was a magical thing for my name, me, and my career.

"Everybody wanted to be the first there. Hell, Earnhardt and Rusty [Wallace] put dents in their cars the first time to go testing to be the first one on the racetrack. Then you'd fight to be the first out to practice, then you'd fight to be the first to do this and do that. So I was the actual one that won the first actual competition, to be first at something that mattered. You cannot take the significance away from that."