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‘King of the Corn’ Newgarden leads Penske’s dominance in Iowa.

Posted by hostabdoIn Last Modified

The name of the race was the Hy-Vee Homefront 250, but after Joseph Newgarden, the team’s Penske trio 250 at Iowa Speedway, polesitter Will Power and Scott McLaughlin played against the field, 248 laps of the 250 will be remembered for the overall dominance of the afternoon.

Only a small error in power resulted in a 1-2-3 finish for Penske, but Newgarden and McLaughlin still handed it to the captain as they ran away from Arrow McLaren’s Pato Auward in third and closed all Chevy podiums for Bowtie.

Newgarden, who came in third in the championship, had 50 points for the win, one lap lead and two points for good, leading Alex Pallow with 117 points and a 98 in Sunday’s second Iowa event. It also improved to the second position in the ranking. Power owned the first half of the race and led 119 laps, but once Newgarden got the engine moving, he led 129 laps and dominated all aspects of the race going forward.

“I’ve messed up qualifying a lot here and it’s never going to be easy,” Newgarden said of starting third. “I’ve always been so angry with myself that we didn’t really understand each other. And so it was at the beginning of the race. It literally took us an hour and a half to get the car to where it needed to be. But once it’s comfortable, I think it’s a car beat.

The victory was Newgarden’s fifth at Iowa, and remarkably, the third of 2023 will come at the three ovals to date, and the fourth straight including the final oval of 2022. With the Texas and Indianapolis 500, Team Penske and Chevy proved that they are unstoppable on the three unique styles of ovals.

Palu, who dropped down to eighth place for the first time in a long time, wasn’t the best Chip Ganassi Racing driver to cross the finish line.

That honor belonged to Marcus Ericsson, who used his run to fourth place to reflect Newgarden’s efforts to show the advantage of the championship leader, but on a smaller scale. Eriksen was in fourth place before the race and thanks to the podium, he dropped to fifth in the championship, handing over to the Arrow McLaren driver.

Power was caught in the fifth claim, and Ganassi’s Scott Dixon – the first driver off the lead lap – was sixth and made up some ground on the pole, but like Eriksson, Newgarden fell back one position as he sat behind the leader.

Between Dixon and Palo, Kyle Kirkwood from the Andretti Autosport camp was the first representative in seventh place. Elsewhere, the heights of success for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing came last weekend in Toronto (with Christian Lundgaard winning) in a day full of struggles, where RLL’s Graham Rahal crashed on his own – the only caution in the race – with Lundgaard running several laps in 20th. The team’s best performance was Jack Harvey, who overcame a nine-point grid penalty to finish 18th, three laps shy of the winner.

There were few thrills in the one hour and 33 minutes it took to run the race and most of it came when the leaders merged with the lapped car. Ericsson was the best Honda power driver in the field on Saturday, 14.6 shy of Newgarden at the checkered flag. For every team that doesn’t own a Penske or doesn’t have Chevy engines, it’s going to be a sleepless night trying to find the answer to an impossible puzzle.

The second race of the Iowa weekend begins at 2:30 PM ET Sunday.

As it happened

Will Power led them through the four qualifiers without a problem to turn number 1 and behind them Ryan Hunter-Reay took the top line and improved to P12. Teammate Ed Carpenter went from P18 to P23.

By lap 12, Alexander Rossi was from P20 to P13 and Hunter-Reay slipped to P14 as Power held a steady 0.5s on McLaughlin.

Lap 16 and Pato Auward finally took P4 from Scott Dixon, the car choosing the higher line. Round 18 and the washout started with Benjamin Pederson and Sting Ray Robb. Lap 24 and Alex Palu dropped Colton Herta to P7. Round 25 and top 10 are Power, McLaughlin, Newgarden, Oward, Dixon, Palu, Hertha, David Malukas, Marcus Eriksson and Takuma Sato.

Lap 28 and Hertha’s fading, behind Eriksen up to P9. Lap 32 and Dixon’s back to P7 and Malukas up to P6. Rossi’s early charge is slow and he is in P13 on the 34th lap. In P23, the power penetrates through Carpenter. Lap 37 and Sato demoted Dixon to P9. Hertha are back in P12 behind Devlin DeFrancesco, and he’s injured.

The Hertha’s left front tire became a nightmare because some sort of tire gun problem required it to sit while the crew tried to change the tire, and then the engine stalled. He started 10th, moved to the front, fell back, dug a pit, sat for 43 seconds and returned to Power four laps down the track.

Lap 50 and a wave of pitfalls began for those at the bottom of the field. The leaders remain Hail, McLaughlin, Newgarden, Oward and Palu. Lap 56 and Power by Felix Rosenqvist in P12. Lap 60 and Oward and Rossi and Ericsson and Sato pit. Traffic is a nightmare.

Lap 61 and Power comes in and McLaughlin follows. Newgarden at 62. Round 63 and Palu will join. All leaders are standing.

A lap of 75 and some early stops made top 10 progress. The power is led by McLaughlin, Newgarden, O’ward, Ericsson, Sato, VeeKay, Palou, Grosjean and Rahal. Lap 82 and Rahal almost hits the wall at turn 2 and goes down a lap. When traffic piles up in front of the steering wheel, the power steering is only 0.15cm higher than the McLaughlin.

Lap 95 and Newgarden takes P2 from McLaughlin. We’re on lap 100 and Power passes Dixon in P9. Newgarden’s pressure is mounting with Power, Newgarden, McLaughlin, Oward, Eriksson, Sato, Palu, Rossi, Dixon and Malukas as Power.

Lap 109 and Erickson pits. Newgarden on lap 121. Lap 123 and Plow in. Lap 124 and the three Penske drivers are in with Oward, four of them.

Lap 146 and Power sees the turn 4 wall as he tries to overtake a glancing car and drops to P4. The new top three are Newgarden, McLaughlin and Oward.

Caution #1: Rahal hits the wall in Turn 4, bends the right front suspension and fires on lap 153.

lap 157 and the leaders hole.

Lap 167 and we’re green and Kyle Kirkwood powers past but won’t catch. The top six are Newgarden, McLaughlin, Oward, Power, Erickson and Kirkwood. Palu is the championship leader in P7.

Lap 192 and Newgarden moved past Malukas in P12.

Lap 200 and Newgarden’s 4.1s from Newgarden’s clean, 7.0s over Award, and Power’s 7.2s in P4. Erickson is 9.0s behind at P5 and Kirkwood 9.7s behind. Lap 206 and Palou’s 11.9s in P7.

Lap 208 and the leaders pit, except for Newgarden and Newgarden, will follow in the next round.

Lap 214 and Ericsson takes P4 from Power.

Going down to the final 10 laps and Newgarden with 4.3 over McLaughlin and 10.6 over Award. Barring a mismatch, the race was over as they passed Kirkwood in P7.

Results



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