More suites, bigger concerts, higher stakes: What to know for IndyCar's Iowa doubleheader

DES MOINES, Iowa – As runaway IndyCar championship leader Alex Palou looks to further pad his 117-point lead with just seven races to go in the 2023 campaign while Ed Sheeran and Carrie Underwood share his stage, IndyCar prepares to descend on the small town of Newton, Iowa — home to what is now the series’ most important weekend on the calendar — from a championship standpoint.

Up for grabs is as many as 108 points across the doubleheader weekend of twin-bill 250-lap races Saturday and Sunday at the 0.875-mile tri-oval. For the few who still have even a remote shot at catching Palou, this weekend marks quite possibly their last stand. For others, either looking for a promotion, an extension or a lifeline on the series’ Silly Season, this weekend could significantly impact the direction of their careers.

And for IndyCar at-large, the prospect of massive success this weekend at a track that had fallen off the schedule altogether just two years ago could mean the makings of a new model for race promoters up and down their calendar.

Here’s everything you need to know to get ready for IndyCar’s Hy-Vee race weekend at Iowa Speedway:

IndyCar's model of the future

After logging a sellout crowd for Saturday’s Race 1 a year ago and featuring concerts from Tim McGraw, Florida Georgia Line, Gwen Stafani and Blake Shelton, Hy-Vee and Penske Entertainment executives aimed to raise the bar in Year 2 of the team’s promotion of IndyCar’s lone doubleheader weekend. A track that already looked nothing like it did when IndyCar visited during the pandemic in the summer of 2020 for a doubleheader looked almost freshly-built a year ago, featuring hundreds — or even thousands — of gallons of fresh paint, flashy suite structures on the outer ring of the track and those off-track activities that sprung the idea of non-Indianapolis 500 race weekends needing to feel like “events” instead of “races.”

Thursday, Penske Corp. president Bud Denker was beaming discussing what his team — and those from Hy-Vee that have jointly promoted the event and transformed the facility — have done in recent weeks. The highlights:

>>A three-story suite structure that serves as the backdrop for a significant portion of pitlane — a necessity after the track sold 73 suites for the weekend last year. They sold more than 120 in Year 2, thanks to the structure that’s being soft-launched this weekend before heading to Las Vegas for F1’s November race.

>>Two temporary grandstands, each holding 3,000 guests each, placed between the permanent stands and the suites on the front-stretch that will house Hy-Vee employees.

>>Six-story tall video boards, one each in Turns 2 and 4, so fans — even if they may be unable to see the entire track due to the new infield suite structure — can follow every second of on-track action.

It all makes for, Denker hopes, a weekend worthy of the significant price hikes fans who attended last year’s revamped weekend will have experienced if they chose to renew their tickets from a year ago. Kids are no longer free in 2023. Flex tickets for unreserved seats have doubled from $50 per day to $100 — turning what might’ve been a $200 cost for a family of four with two kids to attend for the weekend last year now $800. For others, a $250 package for two weekend reserved tickets jumped to $800.

The news led to a lot of consternation within the fan base last fall, even after the series pointed out that if you added up even the cheapest seats to watch concerts from these four award-winning artists, along with two of the best races the IndyCar calendar has to offer, you’d pay far more than the couple-hundred-dollar asking price now. And, as Denker explained, the promoter will actually end up selling more tickets this weekend than it did last year.

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In 2022, they gave a hefty chunk of the seating to Hy-Vee partners, who then handed them out to employees or customers of their own. Hy-Vee and Penske Entertainment pulled those allotments back into their pool this year, meaning even if Iowa Speedway isn’t at capacity either Saturday or Sunday this year, it’s set to have sold more tickets and deliver far more revenue than in 2022.

How many fans will actually be in those stands is unclear. As IndyStar followed Ticketmaster’s Iowa IndyCar weekend ticket portal the past couple months, there looked to be somewhere between one-third to one-half of the tickets yet to be sold from a rough look at the blue dots representing unsold seats across the grandstands just two weeks ago.

Last weekend showed no more than a couple thousand of the 22,000 seats left — far more seats than could possibly have been sold in a single week. Though Denker couldn’t explain the discrepancy — he said Thursday he expects 20,000 of the 22,000-seat permanent grandstand seats filled come Saturday and Sunday – an uptick in revenue (as long as it can cover costs) remains the most important part of the equation.

“These suites are the key,” he said. “If you didn’t have these suites, (Hy-Vee) wouldn’t be here,” he said. “(At Belle Isle), that was 80% of our revenue, and the same thing’s true here. That’s the model.”

Do-or-die time for Josef Newgarden

Pato O'Ward and Josef Newgarden split last year’s doubleheader. Their teams have combined to win each of IndyCar’s past seven starts at Iowa Speedway. And if both want to have any shot at hunting down Palou, the only way they can guarantee to make up ground on the 2021 series champ is to win. A weekend sweep sure would go a long way.

But Newgarden, who’s won four times here and led 1,506 laps in IndyCar’s past nine Iowa races — second-best is Helio Castroneves, with 267, despite missing four of those — has done everything he possibly can to downplay his Goliath role coming into this weekend. Should you believe him, this is not a ‘be all, end all’ weekend for his title hopes (he’s 126 points back of Palou in third place), not one he has to sweep, and not even a place where he has to win.

Perhaps Newgarden, who’s won four of IndyCar’s past five oval races dating back to last season, is simply trying to talk down the pent-up internal pressure of a driver who’s wound as tight as any, but as he told reporters last weekend at Toronto, Team Penske — with its three total wins (nine a year ago) and zero poles (nine a year ago) — continues to search across the program for a level of mojo that seems to be missing.

As Newgarden explained, at least on his No. 2 Chevy team, it may have come down to looking too far ahead into the future.

“I think we’ve got an understanding of where we need to be better, but it’s not just a case of having a weakness that needs addressing on the car. I think that’s part of it, but we may have been, I don’t want to say ‘victim’, but we’ve gotten sidetracked on trying to help long-term improvement of the car in areas we think we need to be better,” Newgarden said ahead of Toronto, where he finished fifth. “When you have such short race weekends, and you’re trying to develop for the future, you give up something doing that, and I think we’ve hindered ourselves on some race weekends doing that.

“You don’t have time to work on that anymore. We’re in the back-half of the year, and we can’t be giving up race weekends developing for the future anymore.”

Can Colton Herta ride the wave?

Should someone outside the dominant Team Penske and Arrow McLaren squads come away with a win Saturday or Sunday, you could argue no one else in the paddock is more “due” than Colton Herta. The Andretti Autosport driver entered last week’s Toronto street race with back-to-back poles in races where a poor strategy call and a faulty pit-limiter button together stole two certain podiums — and perhaps one win. While Herta struggled in qualifying and failed to advance to the second round, he clawed his way up into the top-5 in the final stint and earned his first podium of the year.

And in the midst of all that, Herta turned far-and-away the fastest lap time at the 20-car private test most of the series partook in in late-June.

Though one lap speed isn’t the name of the game this weekend, and the No. 26 Honda entry has at times struggled to keep his tires underneath him this year, Herta’s capable of competing with anyone in the field at he and his team’s best. The 23-year-old can also be one of the streakier drivers in the field, multiplying positive momentum as well as anyone.

“it’s been a frustrating year so far, with how everything has gone. We’ve had our chances, but we just haven’t been able to take advantage of them,” Herta said post-race on Sunday. “Then, a race comes around where we don’t really think we have a chance of getting on the podium and here we are.

“That’s IndyCar for you — a little bit hectic.”

Christian Lundgaard won his first race...who's next?

Lundgaard’s win Sunday on the streets of Toronto gave us IndyCar’s second first-time winner of the season, following fellow second-year driver Kyle Kirkwood’s similar win from pole in April’s Long Beach street race. So it begs the question: with two races on tap this weekend, and the unpredictability of short-oval racing, who might be next?

“I think the racing will be fairly similar to what we’ve seen in the past. You feel like you’re a hero when you’re on new tires against others on old ones, and the track’s going to be hot no matter if the air temp is cooler than last year,” O’Ward said. “But it’s a race that can change halfway through with a single yellow and totally flip the field. Whenever you pit, you go a lap down, so the field’s constantly evolving all the time, and it keeps you on your toes.”

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Among those in this weekend’s 28-car field, 10 drivers have yet to win a race — with a couple who standout as drivers who could lurk deep into Saturday or Sunday’s race and potentially come away with a victory we didn’t see coming.

A couple of note:

>> David Malukas: The second-year Dale Coyne Racing driver has suffered a serious dip in results of late, including five DNFs over his past six starts since the start of May. His lone finished race — sixth at Mid-Ohio — proved when things are right, the 21-year-old can be in the thick of things. He finished runner-up in his last short-oval race a year ago at WWT Raceway in the same car with the same team. If he and Dale Coyne Racing can find a way to replicate that performance — and bit of luck — Malukas certainly could find himself on a podium, or better.

>> Romain Grosjean: While the rest of Andretti Autosport finished 12^th or worse in their Iowa doubleheader results a year ago, it was Grosjean who logged a pair of top-10s to remain somewhat relevant. When he’s ‘on’, Grosjean can win just about anywhere — a form he showed early and often this season with a pair of poles and two runner-up finishes in the first four races. An inability to keep the car on-track — whether it be his fault or that of his team — has put him in a rut similar to Malukas of late, but as he proved late at Texas (before an untimely crash) he can run up front on ovals if things are going well.

>> Conor Daly: The series veteran heads to a track that has featured some of Daly’s best performances of his career, including four consecutive starts of third or better, dating back to 2020. He mans Meyer Shank Racing’s No. 60 Honda this weekend for full-time driver Simon Pagenaud, who is yet to be cleared by IndyCar’s medical team due to lingering concussion symptoms from a violent crash at Mid-Ohio nearly three weeks ago. In last month’s test, Pagenaud ran third-fastest — proof his car could have some of the speed Daly craves here. He’s a driver who rarely makes mistakes on-track, so if he can nurse a top-10 starting spot or so through the first half and get clean pitstops, Daly could be around at the end.

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A pressure-packed weekend

What’s tougher than fighting for the first win of your career? Fighting to hold onto your ride, earn a better one or just hold onto a spot in the series at all. Among those with a lot on the line this weekend:

>> Sting Ray Robb: The IndyCar rookie who joined Dale Coyne Racing this year after a runner-up Indy Lights championship finish a year ago, is yet to finish better than 16^th this year — with his best finish coming in a DNF to kickoff the season in St. Pete. A return to DCR is more than uncertain, as he sits 26^th in points. A top-10 certainly could help, but a crashed car or two could be an utter disaster.

>> Daly: Like I stated above, Daly is only here on a temporary basis, but any chance to race and burnish his reputation outside Ed Carpenter Racing, where he struggled for consistency for the better part of four seasons, could go a long way at turning owners’ heads and generating more conversations about the future.

>> Jack Harvey: A year ago, the British driver was the face of this race in Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s No. 45 Hy-Vee Honda. Now, he has to watch up-and-coming Lundgaard enjoy a win in that car last week, after Harvey crashed out Lap 1. He has one top-15 this year and is almost certain not to return in 2024. Should he want to be around at all next year, he needs results — and fast.

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>> Callum Ilott: The Juncos Hollinger Racing driver was the talk of the series to start 2023, with a pair of top-10s with the paddock’s smallest team making him a seemingly likely contender for a future ride at Ganassi or Andretti. He’s only logged two top-15s since. With so much in the Silly Season market still undecided, a headline-making weekend could make him relevant again at precisely the right time.

>> Grosjean: As noted above, Grosjean’s been sink-or-swim this year — and even sunk on some of his better Sundays, too. Several of the series’ young stars have their eyes on his seat for 2024, a loss of which could very well leave him without a place in the sport and racing sportscars full-time. With Andretti’s cars looking so strong in testing, along with his track record a year ago, it’s ‘put up or shut up’ time.

Mark your calendars

IndyCar’s doubleheader race weekend kicks off Friday late-afternoon with the 28-car field’s lone substantial practice of the weekend from 4:30-6 p.m. ET (3:30-5 p.m. local time), ahead of a new feature on the weekend that takes a page from the Indianapolis 500 playbook. Six teams — Team Penske’s Newgarden, Arrow McLaren’s O’Ward, Chip Ganassi Racing’s Palou, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Lundgaard and Graham Rahal and Andretti Autosport’s Devlin DeFrancesco, along with their corresponding pit crews, will take part in a single-elimination Pit Stop Challenge akin to the bracket-style show 500 fans expect on Carb Day at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

On the line? A pot of $50,000 in prize money, with $20,000 going to the victor, $10,000 to the runner-up and $5,000 each to the other four participant teams. The show begins at 7:30 p.m. CT, with fans allowed to walk around the track from 6:30-7:15 p.m. (which also marks the IndyCar driver autograph session window for the weekend. Gates open Friday — a completely free entry day for fans — at 2 p.m. local.

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Saturday starts early, with IndyCar qualifying kicking off just 30 minutes after gates open at 8 a.m. Starting at 8:30 a.m. local, drivers will roll off pitlane in reverse entrant points order to run two flying laps, where their speed on the first will determine their qualifying spot for Race 1 on Saturday and the second lap slotting them in for Race No. 2 on Sunday. Carrie Underwood’s pre-race concert set stands to start at 11:50 a.m. local, followed by the 250-lap Hy-Vee Homefront 250 presented by Instacart minutes after 2 p.m., with University of Iowa women’s basketball star Caitlin Clark serving as the Grand Marshal.

Kenny Chesney’s post-race concert should start around 4:30 p.m.

Sunday morning, Zac Brown Band’s 11 a.m. CT pre-race concert set kicks things off ahead of the Hy-Vee One Step 250 presented by Gatorade set to take the green flag around 1:30 p.m. CT. World-renowned singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran will give the command, with Iowa football coach Kirk Ferentz serving as Sunday’s Grand Marshal.

Sheeran’s post-race concert set is set to cap the weekend at 4:15 p.m. CT.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IndyCar in Iowa: Bigger concerts, higher stakes for Hy-Vee weekend