By David Morgan, Associate Editor
MADISON, Ill. – The Bus Bros. finally had their long-awaited battle Saturday night at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway.
As the laps wound down in the Bommarito Automotive Group 500, Scott McLaughlin and Josef Newgarden found themselves as the only two cars on the lead lap with both needing just a splash of fuel to make it to the end.
McLaughlin had been the man in charge, leading 67 laps on the day, with Newgarden in hot pursuit.
When the caution flag flew with 19 laps to go for a crash between David Malukas and Will Power, it would come down to the faster of the two Team Penske cars on pit road. Newgarden’s crew had a lightning-fast stop to get him out ahead of McLaughlin and that was the advantage he needed.
It wasn’t a simple run to the finish though as a mangled restart with nine laps to go brought out the red flag to set up a final dash to the finish. Newgarden would have to hold off McLaughlin, Linus Lundqvist, Colton Herta, and Alex Palou to get the job done.
In true Newgarden fashion, he leapt out to a quick lead on McLaughlin on the final restart and was able to walk it on home from there, banking his second win of the season and first since winning the Indianapolis 500 back in May.
Newgarden gave all of the props for the win to his pit crew for getting him out in clean air when he needed it the most, putting him in prime position to bring home the victory.
“It was just a hard fight to the end,” Newgarden said. “It was really tough trying to get it right with traffic, time the pit stop sequences. Then at the end, if you ask how we got it done, we had a fast car. We were really good in traffic which is a difference maker. You can’t ignore the final pit stop was a big deal for us. It is hard to say if it works out that we don’t get that done. It certainly was a key ingredient to us winning the race.
“Our guys in the pit lane, it’s a big credit to them. They’ve been really good this year. They’ve had some good cars outside of Indy this year that haven’t translated. It was good to get tonight to translate.”
To add even more intrigue to his victory, Newgarden had to overcome a spin on Lap 196 to even be in position to battle his teammate for the win late in the race. Luckily, he was able to keep it off the wall and avoid contact with any other drivers.
He recovered nicely from the spin losing only a couple of positions in the process and as…
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