March 28, 2024

Newgarden rolls to Iowa Corn 300 win at Iowa Speedway

Pick up any dictionary or Google the word dominate, and you will find a photograph of Josef Newgarden, Verizon IndyCar driver.

Newgarden led 282 laps including the final lap of Sunday’s IndyCar Series Iowa Corn 300 at Iowa Speedway. After back-to-back second-place finishes at Iowa, Newgarden drove the No. 21 Chevrolet Ed Carpenter Racing car to the Casey’s General Stores Victory Lane.

Newgarden’s win broke the grip on the Iowa Corn 300 coveted gas pump championship trophy by Andretti Autosport. Speaking of broken and grip, Newgarden was back competing after suffering a broken right hand and clavicle June 11 in the IndyCar race at Texas Motor Speedway.

“This is so cool. Thanks to everyone in Iowa. I love this place and I love coming to Iowa,” Newgarden said in Victory Lane. “I love the fans here and I love running Indy cars around this place. I hope we come back here for man, many years.”

It was Newgarden’s first win of the season and third career victory in the IndyCar Series.

“What a great car and we have a great team with Ed Carpenter Racing,” Newgarden said. “Ed is a tremendous team owner — he takes good care of me. My right hand was killing me, but having an amazing car helps a lot.”

Two-time defending Iowa Corn 300 champion Ryan Hunter-Reay of Andretti Autosport suffered a blown engine in his No. 28 Honda. He was coming out of Turn 2 on the backstretch, bringing out the first caution of the race on Lap 109. Hunter-Reay’s day was over.

Pole-winner and IndyCar Series points leader Simon Pagenaud led the second-most laps — 11 — and finished fourth. He stayed atop of the points standings, but Newgarden jumped from fifth to second, 73 points back of Pagenaud.

Will Power finished second Sunday and Scott Dixon was third. Mikhail Aleshin was fifth and rookie Alexander Rossi placed sixth. Rounding out the top 10 was Tony Kanaan, Sebastein Bourdais, James Hinchcliffe and Charlie Kimball.

Earlier on Sunday afternoon, Felix Serralles won the 2016 Indy Lights Iowa Challenge. He pushed back into the lead with two laps to go in the 100-lap race. Zach Veach finished second and Indy Lights Series points leader Ed Jones placed third.

More on both races will be in Monday’s Newton Daily News.