NEWTON, Iowa – Another Hy-Vee IndyCar Race Weekend at Iowa Speedway has concluded and according to many of the IndyCar drivers, track owner NASCAR ruined what was a great short oval for IndyCar.
NASCAR owns the seven-eighths mile Iowa Speedway and prior to 2020, did not seem to value this gem of a facility located off Interstate 80 near the town of Newton. When the COVID-19 pandemic shut down many sporting events in the United States, IndyCar leased the track from NASCAR and staged a doubleheader at the facility, self-limiting the crowd to 7,000. The ARCA Series also competed at Iowa Speedway that year.
But in 2021, Iowa Speedway was not on the IndyCar schedule and NASCAR did not seem to have any future plans for the facility.
Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds contacted supermarket chain Hy-Vee, based in West Des Moines, to see if the track could be saved. They approached IndyCar Series owner Roger Penske and he agreed to join the plan to bring IndyCar back to the “Fastest Short Oval on the Planet.”
In 2022, the Hy-Vee IndyCar Race Weekend at Iowa Speedway combined two complete IndyCar Series races with four big-name entertainment acts, for major concerts before and after each race.
Hy-Vee and Penske Entertainment rejuvenated the facility, steam cleaning the grandstands and applying a fresh coast of paint. Large suite areas were constructed and were packed with vendors and suppliers that do business with Hy-Vee and IndyCar.
Another big event weekend took place in 2023 and another large crowd turned the cornfields of Newton into a summer festival featuring entertainment and IndyCar on the same bill.
NASCAR saw the success that IndyCar had created and suddenly became interested in bringing a Cup Series race to Iowa in 2024. The NASCAR Xfinity Series, NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and ARCA all competed at Iowa in the past, but never the top level of NASCAR.
To accommodate its bigger, heavier cars, NASCAR did a partial repave of the lower lanes in the sweep Turns 1 and 2 and Turns 3 and 4 area of the short oval. The new pavement provided more grip and the older pavement up high had less grip.
That combination was quite disruptive for the IndyCar formula that runs at much higher speeds than NASCAR.
On June 16, the NASCAR Cup Series staged a great race in the Iowa Corn 350 presented by Ethanol that was won by Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney.
But when IndyCar arrived on Friday for practice for the Hy-Vee IndyCar Race Weekend, the drivers discovered a one-groove track where there was little grip up high. Plus, the worn rubber from the Firestone tires accumulated in the high line as the “marbles” made that portion of the race track slippery.
With the exception of Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden passing eight cars on the opening lap of Saturday night’s race, both races saw little passing and were high-speed processionals.
Statistics don’t lie and the stats between last year and this year are startling.
In Race 1 of 2023, there were 1,502 total passes with 319 for position. This year’s Race 1, the numbers dropped to 192 on-track passes with 100 for positions.
For Race 2 in 2023, there were 1,168 total passes with 379 for position. On July 14, that number was 204 on-track passes with 95 for position.
“It’s the most boring thing I’ve ever done,” second-place finisher Alex Palou said. “It’s a shame we didn’t put on a better show. I’m sure everybody would agree it was a very boring show.”
Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward called it a “snoozefest.”
IndyCar officials certainly didn’t ask for the repave, but it’s NASCAR’s track and as the owner of the facility, it leases the venue to IndyCar and Hy-Vee for this event.
Is there a solution to this track to create a racing surface that will work for both NASCAR and IndyCar?
“It’s a shame that we couldn’t really put a better show,” Palou said. “I think everybody will agree that it was a very boring race to drive.
“Even when leading, being in the middle of the pack yesterday, I don’t know, the Indy cars we had, the package of IndyCar tire, aero, engine, whatever we had on track this weekend, it was impossible to make it run.
“So, I don’t know. It was never an issue before. It was a repave for our cars. But having that said, we’ve seen other series here run well.”
Palou compared the repave at Iowa to running a Moto GP on dirt.
“It’s a cool track, but you cannot put it on the same and expect a very nice race,” he said. “It was a shame because it used to be a really cool race I think for the fans with tons of overtaking and tons of tire deg and things to do.
“I don’t know. I don’t have the answers.”
The changes at Iowa Speedway this year are reminiscent to the situation that developed at Texas Motor Speedway when a compound known as PJ1 was applied to the track to make it grippier for NASCAR.
Instead, it was a skating rink for IndyCar when it returned in 2020.
The high-line situation was improved to a degree at Texas Motor Speedway, but IndyCar did not compete there in 2024 and it is not on next year’s schedule.
Scott McLaughlin, who won Saturday night’s race, had some thoughts that could improve the racing after finishing third at Iowa on Sunday.
“The outside lane can work in the first five or 10 laps,” McLaughlin explained. “I saw Marcus Ericsson using it to get a pass on Will Power and a few other things behind these two.
“But personally, Firestone does an amazing job for us. We need to somehow work a way to get the second lane to work. That’s after 30, 40 laps. Whether that’s a compound that goes on the racetrack or something that acts with our tire and allows us to continue running that second lane.
“Like, that thing worked. I passed three cars today on the outside of the restart. It does work. I think it will work through the race if you can just eliminate some of the excess rubber that goes on there.”
McLaughlin would like to see IndyCar make some improvements to the package by adjusting downforce levels, along with Firestone using different compounds for the tire.
“You just can’t blame the track because at the end of the day they have to repave this at some time,” McLaughlin continued. “That’s just how it is.
“If we can somehow get our cars working when a repave happens and know what we need to do to make it work, we won’t run into these issues.
“I feel like we go into it and not do the right amount of study or whatnot to get it done and to get it to work. That’s not a shot at the sport, not a shot at anything. It’s working together with the amazing people and the geniuses we have up and down pit lane.
“It’s just a matter of making it work.”
Race winner Will Power believes the extra weight created by IndyCar’s hybrid engine, may also play a factor because it creates more load on the tires.
“I just wonder if we’re just too heavy, the car is simply too heavy now,” Power said after Sunday’s victory. “Then when we add the downforce, it overloads the tire. That’s sort of the predicament.
“I feel like if we were 200 pounds lighter, you could run more downforce, run a softer tire. There’s a lot of things that would go toward being able to.
“I think that should be and probably is a big focus of the new car coming in a couple years, is to knock a lot of weight. It’s hard to, but I think they really need to focus on that.”
He backed up his statement by saying Formula One is shedding weight for its car. He believes a lighter gearbox casing and bell housing that IndyCar used before adding the hybrid engine at Mid-Ohio last week created some better racing for IndyCar.
“It was pretty fierce, good, hard racing,” Power said. “It was a lot more moves and closer racing.
“I just wonder if that’s what it is. Even with this package, maybe just a softer tire might just work with this downforce level. Just a softer tire. If it degrades, people go out. You can roll to the outside.”
Power doesn’t have the answer, but he does have some ideas. The Team Penske driver believes some ideas need to be discussed before next year’s race at Iowa Speedway to get the racing back to where it used to be on this blazing fast short oval.
“I don’t know what the answer is, but we certainly got to do something for next year,” Power said. “We went from the best oval race we would have all season to potentially the least amount of passing.”