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Opinion
The dust has settled on a big weekend at the resurgent Iowa Speedway, where the IndyCar Series returned after the ultra-fast 0.0894-mile oval disappeared from the schedule last year, thanks to the sponsorship and support of Hy-Vee. Here is all the news from IndyCar’s return to Corn Country:
Josef Newgarden wins Saturday
The Tennessean, driving for Roger Penske, dominated Saturday’s 250-lap race in front of a huge crowd and in temperatures of over one hundred degrees Fahrenheit (37 degrees Celsius).
He led for two hundred and eight of those laps, thus earning his fourth career win (2016, 2019 and race two of the 2020 double bill) at the 0.894-mile oval. That makes Newgarden the all-time IndyCar Series wins leader at Iowa, breaking a tie with Ryan Hunter-Reay, and Saturday was his fourth win of 2022.
It was Newgarden first, daylight second: the American beat Arrow McLaren SP’s Pato O’Ward to the finish line by 6.1748 seconds. Polesitter Will Power was third: a good showing for the Australian after a rough Toronto race.
Newgarden’s win saw him pass teammate Power for second in the IndyCar Series championship standings, and on Saturday evening trailed leader, Chip Ganassi Racing’s Marcus Ericsson, by fifteen markers.
Pato O’Ward wins Sunday
There was drama with sixty-five laps remaining on Sunday when Newgarden, cruising out front, hit the turn four wall hard, his Team Penske Chevrolet sustaining major damage.
O’Ward assumed the lead from that point, the Mexican pilot for Arrow McLaren SP beating Will Power home by 4.2476 seconds for his second win of the season, after triumphing at Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama. New Zealand’s Scott McLaughlin was third for Penske and – capping off a good day for IndyCar Series drivers from out neck of the woods – another Kiwi, Scott Dixon, brought his Ganassi Honda home in fourth.
Newgarden in hospital
A scary addendum to Sunday’s activities for Saturday’s race winner.
Following his heavy crash late on Sunday’s race, Newgarden walked away from his damaged car and was initially cleared at the infield care centre.
Later, he fainted, and was dramatically air-lifted to a hospital in Des Moines – owing to extensive traffic delays leaving the track, rather than the seriousness of his condition – for further observation. A real downer on which to end the weekend.
Hopefully Josef is a-okay in time for next week on the road course at Indianapolis.
Will Power is the Pole King
Toowoomba’s favourite son captured pole position for both Iowa Speedway races, his sixty-fourth and sixty-fifth IndyCar Series pole awards. That puts Power one away from Mario Andretti’s all-time record. Not too shabby at all – and the great shame, as I will say to anyone who’ll listen, is how Power is not an absolute mega star down here.
A great weekend for Jimmie Johnson
In his first full-time season of IndyCar Series racing, the seven time NASCAR Cup Series champion has looked most at home on ovals. This weekend at Iowa was no different.
On Saturday, he drove trough the field to finish a fighting eleventh and backed that up with a fifth place a day latera result he called a “special day”. A slightly longer race, and who knows where JJ might have finished? A podium wouldn’t have been out of the question.
It’s easy to knock Johnson (and NBC for their often-saturating coverage of a guy who is mid-pack at best most weeks) and plenty have. It’s low hanging fruit. Instead of being negative, we should be thankful and grateful that Jimmie is in IndyCar racing.
He’s unquestionably brought a new set of viewers to the series and the great Carvana sponsorship as well, and he seems to be having a blast, despite the enormously steep learning curve on road and street courses. Although, he’s showing incremental progress there as well.
I think it’s incredible that he hasn’t rested on his considerable laurels, and is instead stepping way outside his comfort zone to race a series that’s the complete opposite of the stock car racing world.
Another reason IndyCar needs more ovals: to give Jimmie Johnson a few extra chances to shine.
Indy Lights success for Australians and New Zealanders
Kiwi Hunter McElrea won the Indy Lights race on Saturday for his second consecutive series victory, taking advantage of a post-race penalty to series leader Linus Lundqvist for avoidable contact with Australia’s Matt Brabham five laps from the end.
A brilliant event
Like the Gateway in St Louis with the Bommarito Automotive Group, Iowa Speedway and Hy-Vee, a supermarket chain prolific in Iowa and looking to expand it’s reach, showed exactly how to promote an IndyCar race weekend. From a multitude of displays in all their stores, to print, TV and digital advertising, organising grocery deliveries to in-field campers, securing big name concert acts to play before and after – Gwen Stefani, Tim McGraw and Florida Georgia Line, amongst others – thus turning the double-header race weekend into an event.
And clearly it worked: despite obscenely hot weather, the grandstands were packed and there was plenty of good racing around the lighting-fast oval that markets itself as the fastest short track on the planet. The on-track product has always been good, but attendance in recent years has not. It was nice to see both, twice.
This weekend was exactly where IndyCar needs to be: midwestern ovals in front of passionate fields, with great sponsors. And not one bad word from anyone on social media, which is exceedingly rare these days.
When you consider that Hy-Vee are one of the more recent sponsorship arrivals to IndyCar racing, their commitment is pretty incredible.
The brand was front and centre in pretty much every photo I saw from the track, and their logo and bright red corporate chalets outside of turn one and turn three featured heavily on the two days’ worth of network NBC coverage in America. If there were a dozen sponsors like Hy-Vee (and the Bommarito Group, as well), saturating race weekends, IndyCar would be in an even better place than it is now.
IndyCar needs more ovals to maintain its brilliant racing diversity. That much is a given. Getting people in the stands at places like Texas has been a tough ask recently, hence why venues like Homestead, Phoenix and Fontana have dropped off the schedule.
Unquestionably, what we saw at Iowa and what we will see at Gateway is a blueprint for future success. Other promoters have seen how to market, promote and stage an oval track event away from a major population centre, and how doing it comprehensively brings sold-out crowds. Bar, raised. Over to you, other promoters.
Next up
Indianapolis 500 winner Marcus Ericsson still leads the IndyCar Series championship – he’s eight points ahead of Will Power, with Newgarden twenty-six back – as we head back to the scene of Ericsson’s greatest racing moment: the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
On the return visit, it’s the IndyCar/NASCAR double header weekend – the Cup Series and second-tier Xfinity Series will both be at the iconic Brickyard – and that means a rare Sunday morning race (2:00am AEST) on Stan and IndyCar Radio via the IndyCar app.
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