NEWTON, Iowa – Josef Newgarden crushed the competition at Iowa Speedway and then angrily called out those whom he felt unfairly impeded the progress of his dominant No. 2 Dallara-Chevrolet.
He also made a not-so-veiled threat of revenge.
“Like there’s just a point where you’ve got to understand that that comes back around,” Newgarden said. “If you do that to someone, I’m going to fence you the next time I see you. If you’re the leader the next time, I am going to do you so dirty if you did that to me.”
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With the Team Penske star (who led 129 of 250 laps) and teammates Scott McLaughlin and Will Power (who led 119) setting a blistering pace, only five of 28 cars finished on the lead lap.
In his victory lane interview, Newgarden immediately referenced lapped traffic as a major annoyance during his fourth consecutive oval victory in the NTT IndyCar Series.
“There’s a lot of people,” Newgarden said when asked later to identify which drivers had blocked him. “There’s a lot of people. It’s one thing if you’re leading the race. If you’re leading the race, you’re really within your right (to block). If you’re fighting with people around you, seventh, eighth, ninth place, you’re all fighting. You’re within your right to fight as hard as possible.
“It’s also legal for them to fight to the death to stay on the lead lap in front of the leader. It is legal. I’m just telling you you’re not making any friends when you do it. There’s 20 laps to go in the race, and I was getting driven like it was literally to the death for the end of the Indy 500. It was just crazy. I couldn’t believe the way people were mirror driving.
“I’ve never seen it that bad here. Normally if you’re the leader, you’re not getting a handout, but you’re at least getting the courtesy that you are the leader and you’re about to get lapped. You don’t have to pull over, but just don’t be aggressive and weave in front of the leader, block the leader, chop the leader.
“It’s common sense. Everybody in the paddock knows it, and there’s just people who just can’t get it. If they can’t learn it by now, they’ll probably never learn. I guess where I’m going with this, you can tell I’m frustrated by it, which a lot of people are. I can’t change people’s behavior. If they’re going to continue to do that, I have to study and figure out how to counteract it because that’s how they’re going to play.
“I’m going to assume they’re going to play like that (in Race 2 Sunday), and I’ve got to be in a better position and better equipped handle it.”
Runner-up McLaughlin and third-place finisher Pato O’Ward also expressed reservations about how they were driven by lapped drivers.
“Sometimes you get to some guys, and they’re just not very gentleman-like, I guess,” O’Ward said. “I had some moments in there where it wasn’t all turning left for sure.”
McLaughlin whittled Newgarden’s lead down by nearly 5 seconds in the closing laps because of traffic.
“I think he was getting choked up a little bit,” McLaughlin said. “There’s a lot of guys out there that were racing the leader very hard, mirror driving, and just at times it was quite dangerous.”
Are we naming names of the perpetrators?
“Not in the media, but we’ll go see them tonight,” McLaughlin said.
Newgarden also vowed to put the word out that he would be on the offensive in Sunday’s 250-lap race.
“I’ll go talk to some people, too,” he said. “They need to know. Look, it’s not cool. It’s not cool. If you want to play that game, that’s fine, but you should be thinking long term.”
