By David Morgan, Associate Editor
NEWTON, Iowa – Scott McLaughlin has been a roll all weekend in Iowa.
Fastest in practice? Check.
A pole and another front row start? Check.
Now he can add an NTT IndyCar Series oval win to his resume after winning Saturday night’s Hy-Vee Homefront 250 at Iowa Speedway over Pato O’Ward.
“Hell yeah. Give me a beer!” McLaughlin exclaimed after climbing from his car in victory.
“The XPEL Chevy was unreal. What got it done tonight was the pit stops, the team. Got me out in front of Herta there and we just sort of showed our pace. That’s a big deal today, man. I’ve been working on that for a couple of years. It takes a lot of hard work…
“I’m really stoked for this whole team. Really proud of this whole team at Penske. We’ve got another race tomorrow and we start from pole, so let’s go!
McLaughlin ascended to the lead on Lap 87 over polesitter Colton Herta thanks to a quick pit stop from his crew and never looked back, leading the final 164 laps as he kept his competitors at bay through both green flag running and four different restarts.
With the performance on Saturday night, McLaughlin goes into Sunday’s second race of the Iowa doubleheader as the polesitter, looking for a clean sweep of the weekend and hopefully many more oval wins in the future.
“I never was going to call myself an IndyCar driver until I won on an oval, so I’m going to call myself an IndyCar driver now if you don’t mind.
“Hopefully the floodgates open. We bloody need them to because we’re a fair way behind in the championship. We’ll see how we go.”
Finishing 0.4814 seconds in arears of McLaughlin, O’Ward moved forward from sixth place on the start to the runner-up position, but lamented the inability to pass on the repaved Iowa surface that kept him from being able to take a swing at McLaughlin for the lead and the win late.
“My car had more. I was super, super happy with it,” O’Ward said. “All race, you just can’t frickin’ do anything with no two lanes. Like it’s just a one lane race track. If you try anything, you’re probably going to end up in the wall, so not worth to risk it.
“We’re just making our moves in the pits. The guys did a phenomenal job. Awesome pit stops. I kept it clean on the track really. The guys gave me the opportunity to be on the podium today, so super stoked. Arrow McLaren. Let’s go!”
Much like McLaughlin, O’Ward…
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