NASHVILLE — Kyle Kirkwood is having an up-and-down sophomore season in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES. However, what he did during Sunday’s Big Machine Music City Grand Prix as well as earlier this season on the streets of Long Beach is showing flashes of brilliance that could someday soon, make Kirkwood the next great American open wheel hero.

It’s going to take a lot to supplant Josef Newgarden. The Tennessee native is the reigning Indy 500 champion and has accumulated two championships and 29 race wins. He’s clearly the face of Indy Car in regards to American heroes.

MORE: Kirkwood wins Sunday’s race Nashville, recap with my top 5 takeaways

However, Kirkwood could soon be next in line.

In Newgarden’s 30th start, he finished runner-up on the streets of Baltimore. That was just his third top five finish of his young career at that point. Kirkwood nearly has as many wins (2) as Newgarden had top fives (3) in each of their first 30 starts.

Newgarden had 6 top 10 finishes in that span, all coming in his sophomore year. Kirkwood now has 6 top 10’s too.

The thing is, it’s also hard to compare the two since Kirkwood is driving for Andretti Autosport now to where Newgarden spent his first three seasons with Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing. Nothing against that team, but they’re not Andretti.

It wasn’t until Newgarden got to Penske in 2017 to which he had his breakout in scoring 26 of his 29 wins with that outfit.

However, for Kirkwood to win twice already this season alone, well he’s starting to show us that this is who we expected this Jupiter, Florida native to be.

A day before Kirkwood led 53 of 85 laps en route to his maiden NTT INDYCAR SERIES victory in Long Beach, the 24-year-old scored his first career pole in the series as well. His boss, Michael Andretti, said that Kirkwood was the “real deal” in the post qualifying press conference.

24 hours later, Kirkwood lived up to the billing.

He led the first 22 laps and the final 30 to give Andretti Autosport their 71st career INDYCAR win and fourth in the last five years at the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.

On Sunday, he gave Andretti their 72nd career win meaning that their only wins this season, well he’s delivered them.

See, this was likely always going to be his destination. Kirkwood scored 10 wins for Andretti in the 2021 Indy Lights season en route to a championship. He also had four runner-ups to tally 14 top two finishes in 20 tries. That came after nine wins in a championship winning season in the 2019 Indy Pro 2000 Series. That came a year after Kirkwood had 12 wins and a runner-up in the 14 race USF2000 campaign.

Three years, 31 wins, seven runner-ups and three championships in 50 starts.

That is the “real deal.” But, how would that translate over to the NTT INDYCAR SERIES. Unfortunately, Andretti didn’t have any room at the inn for the 2022 season.

Devlin DeFrancesco would replace the departing James Hinchcliffe. Romain Grosjean was in favor of Ryan Hunter-Reay. With Colton Herta locked up for a long time and Alexander Rossi coming into his final year of his contract with Andretti, Kirkwood had to look elsewhere.

His Andretti aspirations for last season were dependent on Andretti’s F1 endeavors. If they could get into Alfa Romeo/Sauber, then Herta was going with them which as a result, would allow Kirkwood to step into the 25 seat. However, that didn’t end up happening.

So, Andretti looked for an alternative option. In came AJ Foyt Racing.  However, it was almost a loaner opportunity with Andretti retaining Kirkwood’s rights despite the venture.

The path looked clear that Rossi wouldn’t return in 2022, so this was a one year stop gap. It was a perfect fit too.

Let Kirkwood learn the ropes and go through rookie mistakes with another team. Rookies are normally tough on equipment and otherwise costly. Let him tear up Foyt’s cars and get that out of his system so when he comes back to Andretti, he’s not as raw and would certainly have a better feel for the competition in the most difficult racing series in the world.

“I think it was huge, to be honest with you,” Andretti admitted. “A rookie is definitely going to make mistakes and things like that, just because you’re learning, right?

“By him having that year, coming to us, it worked out perfect for us. You see it right away, he’s competitive. Hopefully he can win a bunch of races.”

Kirkwood is the all-time winningest Road to Indy driver (31 wins). He knows how to get the job done. Last year, he admitted that he wasn’t used to being mid pack or even further behind and honestly didn’t know how to race like that. He was always used to always being up front and now in the situation that he was finding himself in at Foyt, he pushed too hard to get back towards the top half of the field. The other problem was that he was so good coming through the ranks, that he never had much time to learn his actual race craft. When you’re always on the pole and leading laps, you don’t get the experience to race other people.

In 2022, he got the discipline of all the above. Now, he’s back in the front and knows it’s time to maximize on this opportunity.

He’s had success with rebounding from being ran over on the first lap at Detroit to finish sixth. He was pushed off the track on Lap 1 in Road America to come back to finish ninth.

He’s also had troubles too. From crashing in the Fast Six in St. Pete. To crashing in the second round of qualifying in Detroit. He crashed on pit road in Texas. He got upside down at Indy. He spun while battling for third early on in the race at Mid-Ohio. He accidentally punted Helio Castroneves on a mid-race restart while being the lead driver on the lead strategy.

Once he cleans up these mistakes, watch out. Which is why I feel like he’s on the cusp here. He’s only 24. He’s only in his second year. He’s had a quick rise in spending one year in each of the three Road to Indy ladders.

Next year will be the first time that he’s returned to a series with the same team.