Newgarden enjoys wild reversal of fortunes to win a year after flipping at WWTR

Josef Newgarden was simply thankful for ending his evening in Madison, Illinois, with the No. 2 Team Penske Chevy resting on all four wheels.

The fact that he reached victory lane one year after taking a frightening flight over the crashing car of Louis Foster and ground to a halt while sliding along the pit wall and hanging upside down in the car was a big bonus…even if he wasn’t exactly sure of who was joining him on the podium.

“It was nice to not flip…I enjoyed that part of it. I did do a sick rail grind, okay? I've got a dope highlight reel. I'm going to be honest with you guys. If I stop tomorrow, it's going to be like there's a cool list of things I've done. I rode a car off at Road America in the kink. You haven't lived until you've done that. I don't know how many people have done a rail grind at Gateway. Newgarden said after taking the win at World Wide Technology Raceway, his second of the year after taking the Phoenix Raceway win as well.

“I've F'd up and hit a curb on turn four in Indianapolis, smoked my foot. Put that in the highlight reel. It's been good. Nice to come back and get a win this weekend. We've had some other good moments, too.”

The story was rather different for Newgarden a year ago. Chris Jones/IMS photo

With the similar liveries carried on the Nos. 20 and 21 ECR Chevys in mind, Newgarden lost track of whether Alexander Rossi, who was having a rough night at WWTR on the way to finishing 18th, or his ECR teammate Christian Rasmussen who tore through the field to fight for the win, was on the tail of the No. 2 Chevy.

In fact, Rasmussen passed Newgarden for the lead and held it briefly before finishing third and taking his first podium of the season.

“So I got a little confused,” Newgarden said as he uncorked a fun story. “I thought Christian was a lap car (trying to unlap himself). I didn't realize that (it) was Rossi that was a lap car. It's my fault. I was going to let him go. ‘He doesn't matter, I'll just follow on him. I don't really want to be behind him.’ I still didn't know he was on the lead lap.

“That is why when (Rasmussen) came up to the podium, I am like, ‘What are you doing here? How did you get here? You were a lap down.’ I think he got a little offended by that. I'm so glad that I repassed him. ‘He's kind of in the way, so...’ Yeah, that's really the truth. I thought he was the lap car and Rossi was the one that I was going to fight. I didn't know till I got to the podium. I was confused why he was there. I got it wrong in my mind.”

Confusion aside, Newgarden’s victory took his career tally to 34 where he holds a joint ninth on the all-time list with Team Penske alumni Al Unser Jr. Of the 34, three were earned with ECR and the rest have been taken while delivering two IndyCar championships and a pair of Indianapolis 500 wins for Penske.

“I got to be honest, my reaction is more, I enjoy working with the individuals around me, I really do,” he said after learning of his move to ninth. “That's no disrespect to the win list. You're not going to find someone that is more competitive than me. I very much know the stats anything you want to look at in IndyCar.

“I enjoy my time with my team. I really do. I like working with the team. So when I think about victories or I think about the amount of time I've been in the sport, that's what I really lean on now. We're in a pretty good place. We keep building momentum in a lot of ways as a team. I think we're building a lot of that back, which is great to see this year.”