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WEST ALLIS – Two-time IndyCar champion and two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Josef Newgardenhas won two races this season but has been relatively quiet off the track.
Newgarden, 34, has spoken minimally with reporters outside of postrace news conferences and only twice in group settings – on the red carpet at the Indianapolis 500 banquet and briefly at Detroit – since suffering a foot injury in a crash at Indy.
During a test July 8 at the Milwaukee Mile ahead of the Aug. 28-30 doubleheader weekend, though, Newgarden did spend almost 10 minutes with local media.
He touched on the test itself, his desire to win at the Mile and his appreciation for Team Penske. Newgarden, who sits sixth in points, still gets to and from his car with crutches and wears a hard boot on his left foot and ankle but declined to speak about his injury beyond the most general terms.
Here are a few highlights.
Did you get what you needed from the test (before a rain delay)?
Newgarden: We knew what we had here last year with our car, and we came with something pretty different right out of the box, and then we were able to get through some test items that we needed to get through so that we can go back to the shop and then get ready for the race weekend.
You maybe haven’t gotten the results you’d hoped (27th, 26th, seventh), since coming back (to Milwaukee in 2024). Is there any common thread?
Newgarden: I’ve had a couple poles here [2024 second race, 2015 before an eight-year absense], and I think we’ve had a couple shots to win the race. Probably the best car we had, I didn’t even take the green. I took the green flag; I don’t know that I got past the flag stand. I started [on the] pole in that second race of ’24 and I think that was gonna be a really good day.
I love this market. I think Milwaukee’s a great place to race, and we’ve got a good fan base here, and I’m sure if we keep coming here at some point, we will produce a winning result.
So you feel like it’s more circumstances than anything particular you or the team needs to do?
Newgarden: I think so. If I was judging off the car today, I think we’ve got a race winning car. It felt like that, the first laps I ran today. I was like, you could put this in the truck. This thing’s gonna be pretty solid.
What is it about this place that can break your heart, though?
Newgarden: IndyCar racing is very difficult. It’s tough to get everything to fall into line. Sometimes you can get on a run and everything seems to not go wrong ever. And then sometimes you can get inconsistent and … all it takes is one little miscue from any area, whether it’s team performance or it’s from the car, and you’re not winning a race. You're not even finishing up front.
It’s inherently difficult to win. And, you know, when you do find success and you find victory lane, it’s something to be cherished because it's so hard to do nowadays.
Are you the IndyCar iron man with this (brace) and doing what you’re doing right now?
Newgarden: We're driving right now because we've got a great team. We’ve got great cars, and it’s been keeping us motivated, and the team’s done a great job, and we’ve got a couple wins on the year. But I think we have more in us.
Is that just the way you’re wired?
Newgarden: I love my job. I would go nuts if I was at the house, so I’ve got to be here and working and I have a fun job. This is fun work for me.
It can be hard work at times. More so for certainly the mechanics, they’re the hardest workers out here, putting in 10-, 12-hour days consistently. So it’s hard work from the team members, but I think everybody, they know what they sign up for, and they love doing it.
Is it important for you to put your name on the list (of winners) with some of the all-time greats that have raced here?
Newarden: It would be a big honor to win one.
It’s a fun track to drive. It’s one of my favorites. I love short oval racing, but I like the Mile in particular just because it’s so akin to a road course. It’s obviously an oval, but it feels like two super-fast road course corners. So, yeah, I would love to win at some point. We’ll see if we can do it this year.
You are sort of the master of the short oval in this series right now. Can you describe the racing in general at the short ovals?
I think our short oval product has just become so good that everyone expects a phenomenal race when you show up to an IndyCar event, especially on a short oval, because we’ve figured out how to produce multi-lane racing, which wasn’t always the case. If you look at IndyCars 30, 40 years ago, that’s really not how we raced. It would always turn into a single-file, sometimes more processional show, which is not a bad thing. It was just a different style of racing. But the entertainment factor has kind of gone through the roof with short ovals in particular.
It seems like almost every time I show up to one of these tracks, we’ve got a great car underneath us. I don’t want to say the car to beat, but just a very good car. And it makes a difference.
Here, how does the foot affect you?
I feel good. I feel great here. … The car’s amazing, so that’s what’s carrying me.
How difficult is a doubleheader?
When we were looking at the preseason test list and going, OK, you only have so many tests in season that you can do, I think everybody circled this because this is a huge weekend. If you don’t have a good car throughout this weekend, you’re going to lose a lot of points. So I think of it more from that standpoint than the physicality or anything. It can also be … if you have a good car, it could be double the fun because you run one good race and then you get to do it again.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Josef Newgarden Q&A | IndyCar champ speaks on, test, Milwaukee, Penske
Continue reading...
Newgarden, 34, has spoken minimally with reporters outside of postrace news conferences and only twice in group settings – on the red carpet at the Indianapolis 500 banquet and briefly at Detroit – since suffering a foot injury in a crash at Indy.
During a test July 8 at the Milwaukee Mile ahead of the Aug. 28-30 doubleheader weekend, though, Newgarden did spend almost 10 minutes with local media.
He touched on the test itself, his desire to win at the Mile and his appreciation for Team Penske. Newgarden, who sits sixth in points, still gets to and from his car with crutches and wears a hard boot on his left foot and ankle but declined to speak about his injury beyond the most general terms.
Here are a few highlights.
Did you get what you needed from the test (before a rain delay)?
Newgarden: We knew what we had here last year with our car, and we came with something pretty different right out of the box, and then we were able to get through some test items that we needed to get through so that we can go back to the shop and then get ready for the race weekend.
You maybe haven’t gotten the results you’d hoped (27th, 26th, seventh), since coming back (to Milwaukee in 2024). Is there any common thread?
Newgarden: I’ve had a couple poles here [2024 second race, 2015 before an eight-year absense], and I think we’ve had a couple shots to win the race. Probably the best car we had, I didn’t even take the green. I took the green flag; I don’t know that I got past the flag stand. I started [on the] pole in that second race of ’24 and I think that was gonna be a really good day.
I love this market. I think Milwaukee’s a great place to race, and we’ve got a good fan base here, and I’m sure if we keep coming here at some point, we will produce a winning result.
So you feel like it’s more circumstances than anything particular you or the team needs to do?
Newgarden: I think so. If I was judging off the car today, I think we’ve got a race winning car. It felt like that, the first laps I ran today. I was like, you could put this in the truck. This thing’s gonna be pretty solid.
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What is it about this place that can break your heart, though?
Newgarden: IndyCar racing is very difficult. It’s tough to get everything to fall into line. Sometimes you can get on a run and everything seems to not go wrong ever. And then sometimes you can get inconsistent and … all it takes is one little miscue from any area, whether it’s team performance or it’s from the car, and you’re not winning a race. You're not even finishing up front.
It’s inherently difficult to win. And, you know, when you do find success and you find victory lane, it’s something to be cherished because it's so hard to do nowadays.
Are you the IndyCar iron man with this (brace) and doing what you’re doing right now?
Newgarden: We're driving right now because we've got a great team. We’ve got great cars, and it’s been keeping us motivated, and the team’s done a great job, and we’ve got a couple wins on the year. But I think we have more in us.
Is that just the way you’re wired?
Newgarden: I love my job. I would go nuts if I was at the house, so I’ve got to be here and working and I have a fun job. This is fun work for me.
It can be hard work at times. More so for certainly the mechanics, they’re the hardest workers out here, putting in 10-, 12-hour days consistently. So it’s hard work from the team members, but I think everybody, they know what they sign up for, and they love doing it.
Is it important for you to put your name on the list (of winners) with some of the all-time greats that have raced here?
Newarden: It would be a big honor to win one.
It’s a fun track to drive. It’s one of my favorites. I love short oval racing, but I like the Mile in particular just because it’s so akin to a road course. It’s obviously an oval, but it feels like two super-fast road course corners. So, yeah, I would love to win at some point. We’ll see if we can do it this year.
You must be registered for see images attach
You are sort of the master of the short oval in this series right now. Can you describe the racing in general at the short ovals?
I think our short oval product has just become so good that everyone expects a phenomenal race when you show up to an IndyCar event, especially on a short oval, because we’ve figured out how to produce multi-lane racing, which wasn’t always the case. If you look at IndyCars 30, 40 years ago, that’s really not how we raced. It would always turn into a single-file, sometimes more processional show, which is not a bad thing. It was just a different style of racing. But the entertainment factor has kind of gone through the roof with short ovals in particular.
It seems like almost every time I show up to one of these tracks, we’ve got a great car underneath us. I don’t want to say the car to beat, but just a very good car. And it makes a difference.
Here, how does the foot affect you?
I feel good. I feel great here. … The car’s amazing, so that’s what’s carrying me.
How difficult is a doubleheader?
When we were looking at the preseason test list and going, OK, you only have so many tests in season that you can do, I think everybody circled this because this is a huge weekend. If you don’t have a good car throughout this weekend, you’re going to lose a lot of points. So I think of it more from that standpoint than the physicality or anything. It can also be … if you have a good car, it could be double the fun because you run one good race and then you get to do it again.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Josef Newgarden Q&A | IndyCar champ speaks on, test, Milwaukee, Penske
Continue reading...
