NEWTON, Iowa – Pato O’Ward’s first career victory at Iowa Speedway in Sunday’s Hy-Vee Salute to Farmers 300 was a perfect example of taking advantage of an opportunity. It came after presumptive race favorite Josef Newgarden crashed while leading the race on Lap 236.
Newgarden collapsed after the race and was airlifted to a hospital in Des Moines for further evaluation. He was awake and alert but was transported because of the distance and traffic to the hospital, Mercy One Des Moines Medical Center.
After Newgarden’s crash, he spoke to the media following the incident.
“It definitely was a bit of a shot,” he said. “I want to cry. I’m so sad for my team. I don’t know what happened. It was a good run. It’s just one race but I feel terrible for us. Team Chevy and Hitachi guys did a great job. Something went wrong there.
“I’m not sure. Everything felt fine to me up to that point. I did have a vibration at the start of the stint, which isn’t abnormal. Tire balances are always shifting. It’s very possible that we had a mismatched set or something. It wasn’t diabolical whatsoever. Actually, everything felt just fine. It was totally unexpected when it happened. It caught me by surprise. I didn’t know what happened until I was in the wall.
“This is racing. Team Penske is the best. I never have this stuff so maybe we were due. We can’t afford it for this year. But we’ll fight back. We have a great team here.
“This is just heart-breaking. I don’t have the evidence in front of me right now, but something went wrong.”
Newgarden went on to say the hit “definitely rocked me. I got a little bit shaken from it but I’m OK.”
Helicopter leaving @iowaspeedway with @josefnewgarden for Des Monies hospital. To clarify two earlier points:
Dr. Billows said Newgarden checked out OK after earlier crash, and Newgarden was airlifted because of distance to Des Moines by ground (45 mins not because of injury). pic.twitter.com/hVokdXsY5j— Nate Ryan (@nateryan) July 24, 2022
The crash put O’Ward into the lead and when the race was restarted with 50 to go, the driver from Monterrey, Mexico was able to drive away from Team Penske’s Will Power. He won the race by 4.4276-of-a-second over Power’s Chevrolet.
Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin was third followed by three Chip Ganassi Racing drivers, Scott Dixon in fourth, Jimmie Johnson in fifth and Ericsson in sixth.
It was the highest IndyCar finish in Johnson’s career. He joined IndyCar in 2020 after winning a record-tying seven NASCAR Cup Series championships from 2002 to 2019 for Hendrick Motorsports.
As for the race itself, with the ease that Newgarden has mastered Iowa Speedway, he refused to call himself the favorite to win Sunday’s second race of an IndyCar doubleheader at Iowa Speedway.
“In these races, anything can happen,” Newgarden said on Saturday.
His words were prophetic. He was running away with Sunday’s Hy-Vee Salute to Farmers 300 at the 0.894-mile short oval, blistering the field and apparently on his way to victory lane for the fifth time in his career.
Suddenly, on Lap 236, “anything” actually happened. His car suddenly snapped loose in Turn 4 and back hard into the wall. It appeared that suspension failure in the car’s rear caused the issue that stunned the driver as much as the fans and the rest of the field.
“What happened?” Newgarden said while he was still in the car to his crew.
It was a costly crash to the Team Penske driver. Had he driven to the victory, he would have been the points leader by 10 points. Instead, he dropped to fourth in points.
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Keyword: O’Ward Wins At Iowa; Newgarden Taken to Hospital After Race