MADISON, Illinois — It was setting up to be a fantastic Saturday night showdown between all three Team Penske drivers who were going to battle it out for the victory in Saturday night’s Bommarito Automotive Group 500 at World Wide Technology Raceway.
It was obvious that either Josef Newgarden, pole winner Scott McLaughlin or savvy old veteran Will Power were the prime contenders to win the 260-lap race on the 1.25-mile oval in the shadows of the Gateway Arch and downtown St. Louis.
But a late race restart on Lap 240 with 20 laps to go triggered a multi-car crash that took Power’s No. 12 Verizon Chevrolet out of contention and left the driver seeing red.
Instead of being angry with Alexander Rossi, for driving over the back of Power’s Chevrolet and into the air, Power focused his anger on his teammate at the front of the field who was in full control of the restart.
That was Newgarden, who was on his way to creating his own version of Danny Sullivan’s famed “Spin and Win” in the 1985 Indianapolis 500.
That came on Lap 196 when Newgarden’s No. 2 Chevrolet spun in Turn 2 and did a 360-degree spin without being hit by another car or hitting the wall.
Newgarden was able to overcome that incident and remain in contention in what proved to be an outstanding oval race for the NTT IndyCar Series.
Maybe it was the high heat and humidity that made tempers short. Or maybe it was another example of Power’s hot temper, which boiled over when he believed Newgarden had toyed with the field by speeding up, slowing down, speeding up and slowing down before the light went green to restart the race in order to get an advantage over the field.
Once Power climbed out of his damaged No. 12 Verizon Chevrolet, he made a gesture at Newgarden. Without clearly seeing it, there is no need to speculate on what that gesture may have been, but it was obviously in anger.
Power could be seen visibly angry as he walked down pit road and muttered what appeared to be some off-color language before he was interviewed on pit road by NBC Sports’ Dillon Welch.
“I think the leader went really late and then checked up, and then someone checked up in front of me and I just got pounded,” Power said. “Man, a tough points night for us.
“He (Newgarden) is supposed to go in between [turns] three and four, but he just waited, then he stopped. Then he waited and then he stopped.
“I knew that was going to happen. I knew when he checked up again and I checked up, I was going to get pounded and that is exactly what happened.
“So disappointing. We had such a good car. We have had really bad luck in the last two races. We will keep fighting and see if we can get the Verizon Chevy up there. That will be pretty tough from here, but I don’t know why. I do not know why they would keep backing it up. It’s just tough.”
There was so much debris strewn across the track that the race was stopped by the red flag. During the stoppage, Newgarden sat in his car and watched the replay of the crash on one of the video screens at the track.
“It was definitely late,” Newgarden admitted. “I was trying to go as late as I could, which is not — sometimes people go really early, sometimes they go in the middle, sometimes they go kind of late, and sometimes they go really late.
“It’s not that different of a restart I’ve done before. I’ve done a lot of restarts from the front. It’s not that different from other restarts that have gone late.”
It was a matter of timing, but not a matter of motive, according to Newgarden, who would go on to score the 31st win of his NTT IndyCar Series career with the victory.
“I don’t know that I’d change much,” Newgarden continued. “If anyone especially on our team wants to look at the data, you’re going to see a very consistent speed.
“What it looked like to me, when he stopped on the red, I saw the replay, what looked like happened is it went green momentarily before I went, just momentarily. I’m talking like half a second or a second.
“If it’s just that slight difference in timing, if race control goes green and I haven’t gone yet for just a second, I think people were trying to jump, which we’ve had a problem with, to be honest. We’ve had a problem with jump-starts the last two years. It’s a constant topic in the driver meeting.
“If there’s just a slight miscue there, I think people are very on edge on these restarts trying to get the run. It looked like it mistimed in the back, at least with one individual, and that’s what caused a problem.
“From my side it’s the last thing you want to happen at the end. I don’t want to create a wreck. I was not trying to do that. That was not my intention. I don’t know that I’d do much different because it’s how I would do a restart.
“I did the same speed. The next time through I just went a little sooner. It looked like the green going slightly early was the big miscue. That’s my take seeing it from the car, just going off live. Yeah, that’s how I saw it.”
NBCSports.com asked Newgarden directly in the post-race media conference about the difficulty in having one of his teammates so angry at him, especially at a highly professional operation as Team Penske.
“Well, I know Will pretty well,” Newgarden responded. “I get that he’s upset. He got wrecked out of the race. He’s a championship contender. When you get run into, especially after the night he had, he had a great night, a fast car, he drove super well.
“He led two-thirds of this thing. Imagine how he feels.
“I get it. I get that he’s upset. I think he’s going to try to place blame wherever he directly sees it right off the bat.
“He gets hot quick. I think when you calm down and look at it, it’s probably not going to be exactly what he thought it was in the moment.
“But the point is, he’s going to be upset because this is not good for his night in the championship? Believe me, the last thing I want to happen is for Will to get hit. I can tell you that right now.”
Newgarden believes if he talks to Team Penske owner Roger Penske and President Tim Cindric after the race, they will understand that he wasn’t at fault for what took Power out of the contest.
“If I go and sit with my boss tonight, he’s going to look at me and say, ‘Did you do a good job tonight?’” Newgarden said. “I want him to think I did a good job every single night that I see him.
“I wouldn’t change much from my procedure. It’s not that different than what I’ve done in the past. I hate that Will got caught out in a situation tonight, someone running into him. It’s not fun.”
Of all people who had a strong opinion of this incident, it was Colton Herta’s father, Bryan.
He is co-entrant of one of the cars at Andretti Global, working with Kyle Kirkwood on the No. 27 Honda as the race strategist.
Colton Herta crashed on the second lap of his qualification attempt on Friday and had to start Saturday night’s race 25th. He immediately raced his way through the field and became a contender for the victory in the late stages of the race.
But on the final lap, IndyCar Race Control penalized Herta for blocking Linus Lundqvist of Chip Ganassi Racing. Instead of finishing the race in third place, Herta was placed as the last car on the lead lap and finished fifth.
His father didn’t deny that Colton Herta should have been penalized, but he could not understand why Newgarden was not penalized.
“I wasn’t saying that Colton didn’t deserve a penalty, what I’m saying is there is a growing feeling in the paddock there is not a level playing field,” Bryan Herta told NBCSports.com in an exclusive after the race. “One guy who clearly caused a three-car accident checking up the field and wins the race gets no penalty. Then somebody else, racing hard, has to block a guy and gets a penalty.
“What Josef did was worse because he caused an accident taking three cars out of the race. Why does that not rise to the level of a penalty?
“His own teammates are flipping him off.
“He accelerated and slowed down. They tell them in every single driver’s meeting how to manage it.”
Herta confirmed that there remains a contingent of the IndyCar paddock that believe there are inequities in how the races are officiated. This, despite the fact that earlier this year, IndyCar disqualified Newgarden from his victory in the season-opening Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg and also DQ’d third-place finisher Scott McLaughlin and penalized Will Power for illegally manipulating the push to pass system in the race.
“It’s a growing feeling in the paddock,” Bryan Herta continued. “Maybe I’m the first one to say that, but it’s what people feel.
“If Colton deserved a penalty, the other one certainly should have been a penalty. That’s my whole point. Colton blocked Linus. That’s fine. They gave him a penalty. Fine.
“But how do you not penalize the guy that checked up the whole field and caused a crash, how is that not worse? How is causing a three-car accident with a car flying through the air not worse than a guy throwing a block with a lap to go.
“How is that not worse?
“Will Power was five cars back in the field and knows who caused that crash. It was clear.
“He was speeding up and slowing down all the way through Turns 3 and 4 if you talk to those guys. It’s in the rule book to maintain a steady speed and he didn’t do it.
“He didn’t follow the rule and didn’t get a penalty. Colton didn’t follow the rule, and he got a penalty.
“Why? Why is that different especially when there are bigger consequences to what he did?”
That is a question that will likely go unanswered as the IndyCar teams loaded up their team transporters on a hot and humid Southern Illinois Saturday night to hit the road to faraway Portland, Oregon in the morning.
By the time next Sunday’s BitNile Grand Prix of Portland is over, there will likely be other storylines that will overcome what happened on the banks of the Mississippi River on Saturday night.
But it will certainly be remembered for the tempers between teammates at IndyCar’s most successful operation.
Follow Bruce Martin on Twitter at @BruceMartin_500