Iowa Speedway’s re-pave could even IndyCar Series playing field

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

But halfway through a testing session in late June, drivers from multiple teams said they expect this year could be different because of a recent re-pave on the track’s corners.

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

Newgarden is part of Team Penske. Drivers from that team won IndyCar Series races at 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 at Iowa in 2011 as part of the Indy Lights series and his first IndyCar Series win was part of Ed Carpenter Racing.

“It’s an important day, but I wish they just paved the whole thing,” Graham Rahal said during testing day. “It’s so different now than when we were here last summer. I know the Penske guys are disappointed because their massive advantage they’ve had for a long time is probably gone. They are still 1-2-5 in the test. 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 also was at the test. He leads the team in 11th place in the driver standings and is coming off a top-10 finish at Ohio.

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

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

The IndyNXT qualifying round begins at 5:30 p.m. and the day also features autograph sessions from both series and the Pit Stop Challenge returns to close out the night. 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 benchmark was,” Lundgaard said. “I would have really liked to follow the process of this weekend.”

Gates open on Saturday at 12:30 p.m. and the IndyNXT by Firestone Iowa 100 is scheduled to go green at 1:05 p.m.

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

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

Rahal comes 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. “The commitment they’ve made to our sport is unlike anything else. We want to win for them. What they’ve done for this event, you can single-handedly thank Hy-Vee for this track still being around.

“NASCAR would not be here. They were ready to walk away. I hope the community realizes that. IndyCar left for a year even and we’ve been the most loyal of anyone. We’ve been here since this place opened and stuck with them when things weren’t at their best. But it’s a true story. This track would be turned back into 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 slated to go green at 11 a.m.

Kelsea Ballerini and Post Malone will be the post-race entertainment.

The most challenging part of the weekend will be adjusting to the re-paved corners and the quick turnaround from Saturday night to Sunday morning.

“All of the information you have from years past is useless,” said Pato O’Ward, who drives for the Arrow McLaren team. “It’s always been a tire race and never a fuel race. Now, the overcut is going to be stronger than the undercut. It will change the approach in strategy and how to handle yellows. It’s a cool challenge. Everyone will be new to it. It should be fun.”

Reigning series champion Alex Palou comes into the weekend on top of the standings with 329 points. He finished second to O’Ward this past weekend at Ohio.

It was O’Ward’s first true win of the season. He was awarded a win in the season opener back in April after race winner Newgarden was disqualified.

Palou of Chip Ganassi Racing has a series-high three victories, while Team Penske drivers Will Power, Scott McLaughlin and Newgarden each have one win.

Power (281) trails Palou by 38 points in second. O’Ward’s win moved him past Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon for third after Dixon was 27th this past weekend.

O’Ward (259) leads Dixon (258) by one point and Andretti Global’s Colton Herta (249) sits fifth.

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

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

Finishing behind O’Ward and Palou at Ohio this weekend were McLaughlin, Herta and Ericsson.

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

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

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

Before the current run by Team Penske, Andretti Autosport had drivers win at Iowa in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015.

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

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

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

The drivers at the test session said they watched last month’s NASCAR race at Iowa. While the re-pave seemed to work for them, none of the IndyCar Series drivers are expecting a lot of passing or side-by-side racing.

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

Newgarden admitted that having success in the past was nice. He also understands that racing is constantly changing and him and his race team will have to find a new formula to continue their success at the Newton oval.

“Racing is always changing. They are giving us a new problem to figure out,” Newgarden said. “It’s nice to be able to figure out the problem, but you have to always expect a new one to pop up. I don’t think whatever we had working last year will apply, but that’s all right. We’ll try to figure out a new recipe and find continued success here.”

Notes: Andretti Global’s Louis Foster (386) leads the IndyNXT standings by 41 points over Abel Motorsports’ Jacob Abel (345). Foster has a series-most four wins and eight top-10 finishes. HMD Motorsports’ Caio Collet (315) stayed third in the standings after winning his first race of the season at Ohio this past weekend. Four other drivers have at least 200 points. The rest of the top seven includes 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 into Victory Lane at Road America.