Marco Andretti is looking for a second Iowa Speedway victory this weekend. [Joe Jennings Photo]
Team Penske may hold down the two top spots in the Verizon IndyCar Series points’ race, but Andretti Autosport rolls into the Iowa Speedway this weekend for the Iowa Corn Indy 300 presented by DEKALB having won five of the seven Indy car races held at the 7/8-mile Hawkeye-state oval since 2007.
The short-track, opened in 2006 and designed by Rusty Wallace, is located just off I-80 and seats 30,000 fans who are as close to the action as any track on the circuit. The Iowa Corn – sponsored night race expands to 300 laps of action in 2014 after seven years at 250 laps, giving the teams even greater opportunities for strategy and caution flags to play a role in determining the race winner.
Fans have seen Andretti Autosport drivers dominate recent events in Iowa, with James Hinchcliffe (2013), Ryan Hunter – Reay (’12), Marco Andretti (‘11), Tony Kanaan (’10) and Dario Franchitti (’07- Andretti-Green) visiting victory lane for owner Michael Andretti. Marco’s win featured a run from his 17th starting spot to first. The AA team also swept the first two finishing spots in 2013-14.
Andretti Autosport has switched from Chevrolet power to Honda for 2014 and that may be the only question mark for the team in its quest for a sixth Iowa win.
The recent Pocono 500, won by Penske’s Juan Pablo Montoya, saw that team’s Helio Castroneves finish second in the double-points race, boosting him into a tie for the Verizon series’ championship with teammate Will Power who finished tenth. The Penske team has never won at the Iowa track but has captured the pole-position on three occasions. Montoya, who has returned to Indy car competition this season after stints in F1 and NASCAR, has grabbed more points than any series’ driver in the past six races.
Iowa will be just the fourth 2014 oval race so far with Hunter-Reay (Indy 500), Ed Carpenter (Texas) and Montoya (Pocono) having recorded wins.
Three-time Indy car champion Scott Dixon is mired in eighth spot in the point’s chase (149). Dixon and his Target Chip Ganassi Racing teammates Ryan Briscoe (9th), Tony Kanaan (11th) and Charlie Kimball (15th) find themselves well behind the leaders despite high hopes for 2014 after the team’s off-season switch to Chevrolet power. TCGR has two wins at the Iowa track: Dan Wheldon (2008) and Dario Franchitti (’09).
The usual 22 entries will compete in Iowa as Jack Hawksworth returns to his Curb-Agajanian cockpit after sitting out the Pocono race due to a myocardial contusion suffered in a practice crash there. The field will be the smallest ever at Iowa since 19 cars started in 2007.
Look for another Andretti team win in the cornfield.
NOTES:
- Marco Andretti has been on the podium at Iowa four times in his seven starts there while Tony Kanaan has stood on the podium at each of the last four events held there.
- The Iowa races have never been won by a pole winner.
- The 2014 season has seen eight different race winners in the eleven events held so far.
- Despite a tie in the points’ race between Power and Castroneves, Will is considered the leader having two wins to Castroneves’ one.
- 2013 Iowa winner James Hinchcliffe led 226 of the 250 lap race.
- Montoya made his only Iowa start in an ARCA stock car event in 2006.
- NASCAR purchased the track from the family of Featherlite Trailers founder Conrad Clement and appointed Jimmy Small president. There are no plans to hold a Sprint Cup event there in the immediate future. The Iowa Corn growers have renewed their IndyCar race sponsorship through 2015.
- Qualifying and race laps at the dizzying short track are usually run in 17-18- seconds.
- The race will be telecast live by the NBCSports Network at 8:00pm (ET) Saturday, while 2-lap qualifying will be shown on Friday (taped) at 4:00pm (ET). The IMS Radio Network will broadcast the race on Sirius 213 or XM 209.
Paul Gohde heard the sound of race cars early in his life.
Growing up in suburban Milwaukee, just north of Wisconsin State Fair Park in the 1950’s, Paul had no idea what “that noise” was all about that he heard several times a year. Finally, through prodding by friends of his parents, he was taken to several Thursday night modified stock car races on the old quarter-mile dirt track that was in the infield of the one-mile oval -and he was hooked.
The first Milwaukee Mile event that he attended was the 1959 Rex Mays Classic won by Johnny Thomson in the pink Racing Associates lay-down Offy built by the legendary Lujie Lesovsky. After the 100-miler Gohde got the winner’s autograph in the pits, something he couldn’t do when he saw Hank Aaron hit a home run at County Stadium, and, again, he was hooked.
Paul began attending the Indianapolis 500 in 1961, and saw A. J. Foyt’s first Indy win. He began covering races in 1965 for Racing Wheels newspaper in Vancouver, WA as a reporter/photographer and his first credentialed race was Jim Clark’s historic Indy win.Paul has also done reporting, columns and photography for Midwest Racing News since the mid-sixties, with the 1967 Hoosier 100 being his first big race to report for them.
He is a retired middle-grade teacher, an avid collector of vintage racing memorabilia, and a tour guide at Miller Park. Paul loves to explore abandoned race tracks both here and in Europe, with the Brooklands track in Weybridge England being his favorite. Married to Paula, they have three adult children and two cats.
Paul loves the diversity of all types of racing, “a factor that got me hooked in the first place.”