NEWTON, IA – Will Power has moved onto Iowa. He did so rather quickly too. See, Power had an uncharacteristic weekend for himself last week in Toronto. For the first time in over four years, he failed to make it out of the first round of NTT IndyCar Series qualifying on a road/street course event. He’d start 15th as a result.

Then, in the race, he bookened his day with crashes. Power, was involved in a first lap crash as well as a final lap incident that left him with an 18th place finish.

Despite his terrible weekend, he still remains fifth in the Indy Car standings. While he’s pretty far back points wise, he is confident that he can close that gap some and finish in the top five of the points by seasons end.

 “What happened at Toronto was really unfortunate, but I’m putting that behind us,” said Power ahead of Saturday’s Iowa 300. “The Verizon Chevy team is strong and I know we can put that behind us and have a great run at Iowa. We still are fifth in championship points right now, so that is something we’ll have to battle as we head toward the end of the season. We’ve been able to win at a number of the tracks we’re heading to in the home stretch and I feel really comfortable at all of them. We just need to focus and focus on performing as best as we can.”

Power, has four straight top 10 finishes on this Iowa Speedway race track and will start second in Saturday evening’s Iowa 300 (7 p.m. ET/NBCSN/INDYCAR Radio Network). Also, Power was third in the morning practice session as his Penske team went 1-2-3 in not just practice but qualifying as well.

Normally that would bode well, unfortunately for Iowa, it may not. In 12 years of this races existence, we’ve never had a pole winner reach victory lane in Iowa. Furthermore, only twice has the second place starter even won.

Maybe Power can buck that trend and earn his first career Iowa victory.

“I really do enjoy this place, I do,” said Power after earning his first front row starting spot since the second race of the season. “I’ve been trying to win here for a long time. Would love to win a race here. Would love to win a race this season. Yeah, working hard.”

Then, it’s onto Mid-Ohio where has three consecutive podium finishes and four straight front row starting spots. After that, it’s to Pocono, where Power has won in two of the last three years and finished runner-up in the other try. Furthermore, he’s finished worse than fourth just once in six tries. After Pocono it’s to Gateway, a race Power won at last year. Then, it’s to Portland for just the second time and to a new track in Laguna Seca.

So, as you can see, Power has a chance to close the gap, but can he score enough points to win the championship? He can’t afford any bad weeken