Little Dave has been stellar on ovals during his brief NTT INDYCAR SERIES career thus far. Malukas scored his 7th career top 10 finish in just his 29th start in Sunday’s Hy-Vee One Step 250 with an eighth place finish in his No. 18 Dallara-Honda. That’s the exact same spot he finished in this very race a year ago as 2 of the 3 top 10’s last season were on ovals while 2 of the 4 this year on them too.

“We finished eighth today,” said Malukas. “When you look at where we started in third that kind of hurts, but with the car we had today, we did everything we could, we timed everything well, but we didn’t quite have the same pace as the guys in front of us.”

He was runner-up a season ago at World Wide Technology Raceway, fourth this season at Texas and now eighth on Sunday.

That shows that Malukas is starting to find his footing again. After 2 straight top 10 finishes to begin the season off with, he was 19th or worse in each of his next six races. That included 4 straight DNF’s heading to Mid-Ohio.

There he qualified 12th and finished 6th. Toronto was a struggle but qualifying ninth and third in Iowa and finishing 12th and 8th is a sign of progress.

He kept with the leaders in his opening stint of the 250-lap race. Malukas entered pit lane on Lap 52 from fifth to make his first stop of the day. He then took advantage of a full course caution to make his second stop from 8th on Lap 94.

Malukas elected to make what would be his final stop on Lap 189, with cars on different strategies, he exited pit lane in 19th but quickly started moving back up the field.

By lap 210 he was back in the top 10 and was running in that position when a full course caution came out on Lap 240.

The race resumed with three laps remaining and Malukas took advantage of the final shootout to gain a couple of positions and take the checkered flag in eighth place.

“Strategy wise, everything was much better today,” said Malukas. “In the three-lap shoot out at the end we managed to time our runs very well and gained a couple more spots and secure a top ten finish for us. Looking overall, it feels good after this weekend to have two consistent finishes and hopefully it sets us up going into the rest of the season.”