Will Power said he was confident heading into this weekends doubleheader at Iowa. He felt like he had fast cars, just bad luck this season.

Unfortunately, that rang true on Friday night.

Power, qualified his No. 12 Chevrolet third and was running in the top two near the midway point but his left front tire changer didn’t tighten his tire following his second stop of the race.

Power, crashed in Turn 4 shortly after as a result. He’d finish 21st.

“I just took off straight into the wall,” said Power. “Not a good feeling. Unbelievable. So, so, so frustrating. Unbelievable.”

Last weekend in Road America, he had a fast car but had the wrong gearing in Race 1. In Race 2, he was collected in several crashes.

A week prior in Indy, he started on the pole, led a ton of laps, but was on the wrong end of pit strategy after the Oliver Askew’s crash the stalled in pit road.

His finishes heading into Saturday night were – 13th, 20th, 2nd, 11th and 21st respectively. Then, the luck came around. Power, had an uneventful night in starting on the front row and finishing second for his second runner-up finish in the last four races of the season now. This was a result that he so badly needed.

“Looking forward to trying to have a good rest of the season,” Power said after scoring his first Iowa podium in his last five tries. “I don’t know what I have to do to have normal races like Dixon and Pagenaud. Even if those guys qualify last, they still wind up at the front. Maybe I just try less and be a much worse driver and I think I’ll be way better.”

Next up could be Power’s play. Mid-Ohio is the next race and it’s a place where Power has five straight front row starting spots and seven in the last eight years. He’s also scored three podiums in his last four tries there too. Then, it’s to the Indy 500 where Power won in 2018.

“It’s just good to have a normal race,” Power continued. “Really good just to have a normal race. Obviously very frustrating start to the year, as it has been for the last six years. I don’t know what I got to do. A hundred points out. Who cares? Just going to go try to win races.

He needs to start stacking good finishes. I’m sure he hears the noise from the outside about Scott McLaughlin wanting to come try out Indy Car and you know Penske isn’t getting rid of Josef Newgarden or Simon Pagenaud to make it happen. Power, if he wants to keep his seat, needs more nights like Saturday.

If he is though, he wants to see a rule change. He says strategy keeps screwing him and giving free wins to guys like Dixon.

“It’s frustrating when you’re so quick and you keep getting screwed by yellows and INDYCAR because the pits close,” Power said. “That is the most frustrating, annoying thing in history. It’s such a bad rule. It should be changed. It should have been changed this year, and hasn’t.

“Otherwise I would have won a race. Otherwise Josef Newgarden probably would be right up there in the championship, too. Dixon wouldn’t have gotten that freebie win.

“That’s what I say about the season, man. Screw that bloody stupid closing the pits on yellow crap.

“They need to make it fair to people who put a hard, good effort in, spend a lot of money to be at the front, not to get screwed and basically get a drive-through because a yellow falls at the wrong time. Just a horrible rule.

“There’s a solution for it, but they don’t want to change it. They should change it. Just a terrible rule.”

Newgarden, didn’t necessarily have a comment on the rule, but did say he’s tired of giving Dixon wins.

“Dixon has had a great start,” said the defending series champion. “I think we’ve given him a lot of layups already. A couple of his wins were complete layups from us. He is smart, so he is going to take them.

“Hopefully we can get a couple on the back end. If they hand us some layup, we’re going to try to put it in the basket, no problem, as well.”