NEWTON, Iowa — When Rinus VeeKay took over fifth place on the 189th lap during Saturday (July 13) night’s Hy-Vee Homefront 250 at Iowa Speedway, the Dutch racer had to fight off several challengers if he was going to earn his first top-five finish in NTT IndyCar Series competition since 2022.
When a late caution ended and the 250-lap race resumed with 12 laps to go, VeeKay manged to fend off attacks from Marcus Ericsson and Santino Ferrucci as the 2018 USF Pro 2000 champion brought the No. 21 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet home in fifth, 6.56 seconds behind race winner Scott McLaughlin.
“I wanted that top five,” VeeKay told Frontstretch. “Nobody really appreciates a top six, but everybody appreciates a top five. I actually had a little wiggle on throttle on the restart and had Marcus Ericsson on the inside and kind of just looked in my mirror and decided I’m only going to lift after he lifts, which worked.”
After clearing Ericsson, VeeKay had to fight off Ferrucci next, which he did so by forcing the No. 14 A. J. Foyt Enterprises Chevrolet to the outside groove in turns 1-2. After the 2019 Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year lost momentum on the outside of the corner, VeeKay was now clear to focus on closing the gap to Scott Dixon in fourth place but he ran out of time.
VeeKay started in 13th position, moving to 12th after Ferrucci had to serve an early penalty for a restart infraction. When race control called for a caution period for Graham Rahal‘s slowing car, VeeKay used the pit stop sequence to lift himself up to ninth place which became seventh a few laps after the lap 93 restart.
Owing to the single groove nature of Iowa Speedway following the repave earlier this year, VeeKay remained in seventh for much of the race, moving up to sixth when Colton Herta pitted on lap 174 and then up to fifth on lap 189. From then on, it was all about maintaining his position for the rest of the race.
“It was pretty cool, it was good,” VeeKay said. “We had a quite standard race I would say. We were on the right strategy and just hung in there and capitalized when people made mistakes on restarts or on pit stops, so really did well and I think as a whole crew we really maximized what we had today.”
The race began under the intense heat of the day, with temperatures reaching into the low ’90s. After 250 laps in the evening, there are another…
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