Will Power made mention this past 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-16 heading into Sundays race 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 earlier this week.

Newgarden’s led 111 or more laps in 8 of his last 10 Iowa starts including five wins now, a pair of runner-ups, a fourth, fifth and sixth place result in the last 11 tries. He’s won 4 of the last 6 here as well as having scored 6 wins in the last 8 short oval races in general.

Power’s last four Iowa finishes are second, third, second and fifth 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), qualified 3rd for Saturday’s race and now won after leading 129 of 250 laps, he also thinks that his other teammate and Bus Bro, Scott McLaughlin, may be the one to stop on Sunday 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 32-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 admitted as much in saying that he’s studied and relied on what Newgarden has done here in order for himself to be stout as well.

“I give credit to Josef (Newgarden),” McLaughlin said. “We were on a plane home from Tahoe after doing a sponsor thing. I asked him, I watched every lap of his race and every lap of mine. He was very open what I could do better, where I could get air, whatever. He doesn’t have to do that. I think that’s the camaraderie I think we’ve got on the team.

“I’m sure there’s things he hasn’t told me. At the end of the day he opened up a lot, and I learned a lot. Like I said, I’ve been studying this a lot.”

Newgarden outlasted McLaughlin by 3.3755-seconds on Saturday. Does he now regret sharing that information with him?

“I mean, I knew he knew everything,” Newgarden said after scoring his 4th win in the last 6 races here. “I tried to be as transparent as I can with him as a teammate. He’s been — he’s a great member of the team. He’s a good pal. I want to kick his ass as much as anybody. It’s got nothing to do with that, and I’m not giving him any favors necessarily. I just think it’s the right thing to do.

“If your teammate wants to learn something, I hope he would give me the courtesy the same way. When he’s got something on me, I want him to teach me it. I think that’s how it should be. You don’t always get that, but I’m happy to teach him what I know.

“I look at it that it doesn’t really matter — if he knows exactly what I know, then it’s just going to come down to who’s doing a better job. If he does a better job than me, then he deserves to win. I hope he doesn’t do a better job than me tomorrow, but if he does, he’ll be a deserving winner. Let’s see what happens. He looked really good today. I’m going to probably have to step up a little bit more tomorrow.”

Now that McLaughlin has had 250 laps of racing on Saturday, more data to pour over as well as having a front row seat to witness what Newgarden was doing, watch out.

McLaughlin held Newgarden off for the first 93 laps before Newgarden got by for second on Lap 94. McLaughlin would then get by Will Power on Lap 143 and ride in tow to Newgarden the rest of the way to score his second top five finish of the season.

Can he get one spot better now on Sunday?

“I’m going to get him at some point. I’m very determined,” said McLaughlin. “Helluva race. I think the three of us could have easily swept the top three there. Pato did an awesome job. Their cars are just really good through traffic.”

McLaughlin, who was second quickest (175.968 mph) to Newgarden on Friday trailing his top lap to Newgarden’s by just .0477s, has 13 top 5 finishes in his career so far and among his 13 top 5 finishes in the sport, 6 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 now second in Iowa.

He comes to the second leg of the doubleheader at Iowa on the heels of finishes of 7th (Detroit), 8th (Road America), 5th (Mid-Ohio), 6th (Toronto) and 2nd 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 10 wins in 14 tries.