LEXINGTON, Ohio — Kyle Kirkwood loves this place. Like this is bar none this is his favorite race track on the schedule. The results show for it too. He’s undefeated at Mid-Ohio with 6 Road to Indy starts and 6 wins in those same races.

This weekend, he’s proving that too. In his 1st NTT INDYCAR Series start, he was 11th in practice 1, 19th in Practice 2 and qualified his No. 14 Dallara-Chevrolet in 9th for his best start of the season.

On a day that saw the top 3 in points eliminated in the first round, it was the kids who shined with Kirkwood and fellow rookies David Malukas and Callum Ilott shining.

Malukas was 8th in Friday’s practice, 4th on Saturday morning and then in qualifying, he put his No. 18 Dallara-Honda in 8th as the top rookie in the 27 car field.

Ilott continued his impressive qualifying runs on natural road courses in making it out of the first round for the 4th time in 4 tries. This time, he nearly made it to the Fast 6. He was 7th at Indy back in May and this time around in Mid-Ohio, he qualified his No. 77 Dallara-Chevrolet in 10th.