Will Power made mention this week that if Josef Newgarden wasn’t among the NTT INDYCAR SERIES field, then he’d likely have at least a win or two by now at the Iowa Speedway. Power instead, is 0-for-15 at the .894-mile short track tucked into the side of the I-80 cornfields.

“Heading back to Iowa. Yeah, yeah, yeah, one of my favorite tracks. Been trying to win there for years. There’s one guy that seems to prevent it. Yeah, it’s going to be fun,” said Power.

Newgarden’s led 111 or more laps in 7 of his last 9 Iowa starts including four wins, a pair of runner-ups, a fourth, fifth and sixth place result in the last 10 tries. He’s won 3 of the last 5 here as well as having scored 5 wins in the last 7 short oval races in general. Newgarden has a pair of top five finishes in the last three races on the season too.

Power’s last three Iowa finishes are second, third and second respectively. The Aussie also has 6 top sixes in his last 8 Iowa starts in general. 

However, while Newgarden was quickest in Friday’s practice session (176.428 mph) and qualified 3rd for Saturday’s race, he also thinks that his other teammate and Bus Bro, Scott McLaughlin, may be the one to stop instead.

“I know Scotty (McLaughlin) is going to be good. Yeah, hopefully he is not too good, but he could be very good this weekend I could see,” he said on Friday.

Newgarden says that McLaughlin has had the luxury of seeing all the data into what makes the 31-year-old driver so strong here.

“Yeah, there’s no hiding when he is your teammate. I’ve gone a step further than that and just opened up my playbook for him,” he continued.

“He is smart. He is probably going to utilize that pretty well. He already looks like he is. So let’s see if I still have enough for him.”

McLaughlin, who was second quickest (175.968 mph) to Newgarden on Friday trailing his top lap to Newgarden’s by just .0477s, has 12 top 5 finishes in his career so far and among his 12 top 5 finishes in the sport, 5 of which came on ovals. 

He was second in Texas 1 in 2021 and fourth in Gateway that season. Last year, he was second at Texas, third in Iowa 2 and third again in Gateway. This year, he was sixth at Texas and comes to Iowa on the heels of finishes of 7th (Detroit), 8th (Road America), 5th (Mid-Ohio) and now 6th (Toronto) respectively.

He qualified on the front row for both races this weekend too.

Penske has been the top dog on short ovals in general since 2018 with 9 wins in 13 tries.