Myles Rowe took a historic INDY NXT by Firestone victory at Iowa Speedway and then took a bow.
Rowe earned the INDY NXT by Firestone at Iowa Speedway win by executing a stirring late-race pass for the lead, then held on to become the first Black driver to win a race in this series. His margin at the finish was 1.3927 seconds.
SEE: Race Results
This is the second season in the series for the 25-year-old Georgia native who resides in New York and in 2023 captured the USF Pro 2000 Championship.
“It’s so good,” Rowe said after driving the No. 99 Abel/Force Indy entry to victory lane. “We’ve been working a minute for this, and we knew we had the pace. It was about waiting for the last half of the race and seeing what we could do with it.”
Fourteen laps from the finish, Rowe went around series points leader Dennis Hauger on the outside in Turn 4 as they came upon lapped traffic. Rowe’s experience paid off as Hauger, a series rookie, was competing in just his second oval race.
“We don’t stop here — I’m looking for a lot more than this,” said Rowe, who is fourth in the standings. “But I’m glad we could get this (win), for sure.”
The race featured 130 on-track passes and 55 passes for position, both figures ranking in the top three of INDY NXT by Firestone races staged at this short oval track.
Hauger’s strong run in Andretti Global’s No. 28 Nammo machine helped extend his series lead to 73 points over teammate Lochie Hughes, a rookie driving the No. 26 McGinley Clinic/USF Pro Championship entry. Hughes finished 16th in the 19-car race after being penalized for a Lap 3 incident with Rowe.
Hughes, the winner of last month’s oval race at World Wide Technology Raceway, was trying to hold off Rowe for second place when Rowe moved to the inside on the backstretch. Their cars touched, with Hughes’ left rear tire taking a brush from Rowe’s front wing. Race control deemed that Hughes moved defensively, drawing a drive-through penalty that dropped him down a lap to the field.
Andretti Global’s Salvador de Alba, who had turned the fastest lap in Friday’s practice, finished third in the No. 27 Grupo Indi entry.
Several drivers had spins off Turn 4 without contact. HMD Motorsports’ Josh Pierson tried to take the high line around teammate Caio Collet for third place on Lap 26, but he lost the back end of the car. On the ensuing restarts, Juan Manuel Correa of HMD Motorsports and Ricardo Escotto of Andretti-Cape Motorsport spun on Lap 30 while Davey Hamilton Jr. of HMD Motorsports did the same on Lap 34.
The series will be back in action at the end of the month when a doubleheader is staged at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca on Saturday, July 26 and Sunday, July 27. Those represent the 10th and 11th races of the 14-race season.