NEWTON, Iowa — Taking advantage of lapped traffic was the winning move as Myles Rowe scored his first Indy NXT win at Iowa Speedway and became the first Black driver to win a race in series history.
After moving up to second from his fourth-place starting position in Saturday’s (July 12) 75-lap event, Rowe began stalking points leader Dennis Hauger, who had led from the race’s beginning.
For Rowe to get the race lead from the Norwegian racer, he would have to take advantage of the right opportunity to get by the No. 28 Andretti Global machine.
That opportunity presented itself on Lap 62 as the pair were behind the machine of Jack William Miller. As Hauger went low on the backstretch to try and find a way around Miller, Rowe went to Hauger’s outside and put the No. 99 machine in the race lead.
“I knew starting the race that being on new tires and the track naturally being pretty flat out that it was going to come down to the last half of the race with tire wear and also messing around with traffic,” Rowe said. “And it was just being patient at first, just trying to take care of my tires.
“And then once we got through all the yellows and we came back up on traffic, I knew that was going to be the time to get through. Was able to get a bit of a run and just get onto the high line and just able to do what I needed to do in order to get the win.”
Rowe led the final 14 laps of the race to score the win by 1.39 seconds over Hauger and Salvador de Alba.
The race had three yellow flags. Josh Pierson spun early in the race while battling in the top five. Ricardo Escotto and Juan Manuel Correa had separate spins while trying to get up to speed on the ensuing restart, and Davey Hamilton Jr. spun on his own in Turn 2 a couple of laps after the race went back to green.
The victory was Rowe’s first win since Toronto in 2023 in USF Pro 2000 when he won that championship to move up to Indy NXT.
Christopher DeHarde has covered IndyCar racing and the Road to Indy for various outlets since 2014. In addition to open wheel racing, DeHarde has also covered IMSA and various short track racing events around Indiana. Originally from New Orleans, DeHarde moved to the Indianapolis area in 2017 to further pursue a career as a motorsports writer.