Resurfacing Iowa Speedway could level the playing field for IndyCar Series – Newton Daily News

Seven of the last nine winners of the IndyCar Series at Iowa Speedway drove for Team Penske.

But in the middle of a test session in late June, drivers from several teams said they expected things to be different this year due to a recent resurfacing of the track’s corners.

“I don’t think you can build on past success,” said Josef Newgarden, who has seven career wins at Iowa. “We’ve had really good runs here. But this year will be very different. The track is basically brand new.”

Newgarden is part of Team Penske, a team that won IndyCar Series races in Iowa in 2017, 2019, 2020, 2022 and 2023. Penske won both races of a doubleheader in 2020, and Newgarden won both races last summer.

Newgarden won his first race in 2011 at Iowa in the Indy Lights series and his first IndyCar Series win was with Ed Carpenter Racing.

“It’s an important day, but I wish they had paved the whole track,” Graham Rahal said on test day. “It’s so different now than when we were here last summer. I know the Penske guys are disappointed because their huge lead they had for a long time is probably gone. They’re still 1-2-5 in testing. But even I have similar lap times and that wasn’t the case last year.”

Rahal is part of the Rahal-Letterman-Lanigan team. Teammate Christian Lundgaard was also at the test. He leads the team in 11th place in the drivers’ standings and just finished in the top 10 in Ohio.

Lungaard’s biggest sponsor is Hy-Vee, the title sponsor of the IndyCar Series Race Weekend in Iowa.

The weekend begins with Free Family Friday. Gates open at 2:00 p.m. and practice sessions for the IndyCar Series and IndyNXT begin at 2:15 p.m.

The IndyNXT qualifying round begins at 5:30 p.m. There will also be autograph sessions from both series that day and the Pit Stop Challenge returns to close out the evening. Lundgaard and his team won the Pit Stop event last season.

“I wish I had experienced the track before Hy-Vee came to see what the standard was,” Lundgaard said. “I really would have loved to follow the process this weekend.”

Gates open at 12:30 p.m. on Saturday and the start of the IndyNXT by Firestone Iowa 100 is scheduled for 1:05 p.m.

Qualifying for both IndyCar Series races begins at 2:45 p.m. The Hy-Vee Homefront 250, presented by Instacart, begins at 7 p.m.

Luke Combs will perform before Saturday’s race and Eric Church will provide post-race entertainment.

Rahal goes into the weekend in 16th place. He also has Hy-Vee as a sponsor.

“We really want to do well for Hy-Vee, so today is an important day,” Rahal said during the test. “Their commitment to our sport is unparalleled. We want to win for them. What they’ve done for this event, for this track to still exist, we have Hy-Vee to thank for.”

“NASCAR wouldn’t be here. They were ready to go away. I hope the community realizes that. IndyCar was even gone for a year and we were the most loyal of them all. We’ve been here since this place opened and stuck with them when things weren’t going so well. But it’s a true story. This track would be back to a cornfield if it weren’t for Hy-Vee.”

Fans can enter the gates at 9:30 a.m. on Sunday. The Hy-Vee One Step 250 presented by Gatorade is scheduled to go green at 11 a.m.

Kelsea Ballerini and Post Malone will provide post-race entertainment.

The biggest challenge of the weekend will be adapting to the newly paved corners and the quick change from Saturday night to Sunday morning.

“All the information from previous years is useless,” said Pato O’Ward, who drives for the Arrow McLaren team. “It was always a tyre race and never a fuel race. Now the overcut will be stronger than the undercut. That will change the strategic approach and the way we deal with yellow phases. It’s a cool challenge. It’s new for everyone. It should be fun.”

Reigning series champion Alex Palou heads into the weekend as the points leader with 329 points. Last weekend in Ohio, he finished second behind O’Ward.

It was O’Ward’s first real win of the season. He was awarded victory at the season opener in April after race winner Newgarden was disqualified.

Chip Ganassi Racing’s Palou has the most wins in the series with three, while Team Penske drivers Will Power, Scott McLaughlin and Newgarden each have one win.

Power (281) is 38 points behind Palou in second place. O’Ward’s win moved him past Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon into third place after Dixon finished 27th last weekend.

O’Ward (259) is one point ahead of Dixon (258) and Andretti Global’s Colton Herta (249) is in fifth place.

Kyle Kirkwood (234) of Andretti Global, Alexander Rossi (226) of Arrow McLaren, McLaughlin (224), Felix Rosenqvist (192) of Meyer Shank Racing and Newgarden (186) complete the top 10.

Lundgaard (182) is in 11th place and Andretti Global’s Marcus Ericsson (180) is close behind in 12th place.

Behind O’Ward and Palou, McLaughlin, Herta and Ericsson finished in Ohio this weekend.

“I love this track. I’ve always enjoyed coming here and the doubleheader is really cool,” Ericsson said on test day. “They did a great job with the event and the concerts.”

“It will be a challenge to recover from the night race, eat well and sleep well and then go out and fight again. I think it will show us who the fittest riders are.”

O’Ward won the second IndyCar Series race at Iowa in 2022 and won an Indy Lights race at the track in 2018.

Before Team Penske’s current race, Andretti Autosport drivers had won in Iowa in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015.

Hunter McElrea won the IndyNXT race in Iowa in 2022 and Christian Rasmussen was last year’s winner.

After winning the IndyNXT title last season, Rasmussen now competes in the IndyCar Series as part of the Ed Carpenter Racing team. He is currently 19th in the standings but is coming off a ninth-place finish in Ohio.

Chip Ganassi Racing’s Marcus Armstrong is the reigning Rookie of the Year and his teammate Linus Lundqvist is a rookie who won the IndyNXT series in 2022. Armstrong is currently 15th in the standings, while Lundqvist is 17th.

Drivers at the test said they watched the NASCAR race in Iowa last month. While the new pavement seemed to work well for them, none of the IndyCar Series drivers expect much passing or head-to-head racing.

“The races before were extremely hectic and you never knew where you were,” said O’Ward. “But the races this year will be different. It will be super fast and you will see less overtaking. We’ll see. It’s hard to say. The cars will be going fast and the second lane isn’t open yet.”

Newgarden admitted it was nice to have had success in the past. He also understands that racing is constantly changing and he and his race team will have to find a new formula to continue their success on the Newton Oval.

“Racing is constantly changing. They give us new problems to solve,” Newgarden said. “It’s nice to be able to solve the problem, but you always have to expect a new one to come along. I don’t think what worked last year will work again, but that’s OK. We’re going to try to find a new recipe and continue to have success here.”

Remarks: Andretti Global’s Louis Foster (386) leads the IndyNXT standings by 41 points over Abel Motorsports’ Jacob Abel (345). Foster has the most points in the series with four wins and eight top-10 finishes. HMD Motorsports’ Caio Collet (315) remained third in the standings after winning his first race of the season last weekend in Ohio. Four other drivers have at least 200 points. The rest of the top seven include HMD Motorsports teammates Callum Hedge (220), Reece Gold (212) and Myles Rowe (203), and Andretti Global’s Jamie Chadwick (211). Chadwick became the first woman to win an IndyNXT race since 2010 earlier this season when she drove her No. 28 Honda to Victory Lane at Road America.