Indy 500 winner Josef Newgarden shares his Iowa favorites, from the speedway to restaurants

It’s fair to call 2023 a big year for Josef Newgarden, the driver of the No. 2 Hitachi Chevrolet for Team Penske in the NTT IndyCar Series. The Hendersonville, Tennessee, native won the 107th running of the Indianapolis 500 back in May starting from the 17th starting position and following 52 lead changes among 14 drivers.

Newgarden won the NTT IndyCar Series championship in 2017 and 2019, and is the winningest current American driver in the series.

This weekend, Newgarden takes on the only doubleheader of the IndyCar season, two races at the Iowa Speedway in Newton — the Hy-Vee Homefront 250 presented by Instacart on Saturday and the Hy-Vee One Step 250 presented by Gatorade on Sunday.

Last year, Newgarden won the 2022 Hy-VeeDeals.com 250 presented by DoorDash, marking his fourth win of the season and fourth career win at Iowa Speedway. But to say he loves the Iowa Speedway, dubbed the “Fastest Short Track on the Planet,” is an understatement, even though he doesn’t like to pick favorites.

His 2020 win at Iowa Speedway marked the first time in 15 Iowa races that the pole sitter went on to win the race. In 2016, he led 282 of 300 laps at Iowa Speedway, setting an NTT IndyCar Series record for most laps led by a race winner.

In fact, in his 12 races at Iowa Speedway, Newgarden has four wins, six top 3 finishes and one pole position.

Here, he talks about his thoughts on racing at Iowa Speedway, where he likes to stop when he’s in Des Moines and his YouTube show “Bus Bros” with his teammate Scott McLaughlin.

Q&A with Josef Newgarden

The Des Moines Register: I'm going to call Iowa Speedway your favorite racetrack. Is it?

Josef Newgarden: I don’t want to say it’s my favorite because I don’t like to have favorites. It sounds like a cop out, but I am genuinely a fan of everywhere we go. I really am. It’s honestly what makes IndyCar what it is. It’s a very diverse championship. They’re all totally different. You know, Iowa is so unlike anywhere else that we go. And I love that we have to continually tackle new challenges every single week.

Having said that, I'm very fond of Iowa. It’s a fun track to drive, one of the most fun to race on, and I've always enjoyed my time there.

There is something special about Iowa, certainly for me. When I go there, I get this “Field of Dreams” vibe. And I just love it.

The Register: Do you remember the first time you came to Iowa?

Newgarden: I do. I mean, it must have been when I was racing there in 2011. I was still a junior driver. I was hoping to be a driver. I remember winning the race.

I was there with my dad. We had driven there together from Nashville. We used to do that a lot when I was a junior driver. Newton is a pretty small town, especially in 2011. There wasn’t a lot going on.

I remember hanging out and racing the car around a cool race track and enjoying the moment of winning the race.

The Register: I know you have the bus now, but in the past, you stayed in Des Moines. I know you probably don’t have much time to explore the places that you visit. But have you had a chance to explore anything here? And if so, is there anything you want to talk about that you enjoy?

Newgarden: Well, it’s so true. You know, unfortunately, we really don’t see much of the cities that we go to. I’m always looking for good food spots when I’m in town

I found a spot last year when we were testing because I’m always looking for good coffee — St. Kilda. I thought this looked like a good breakfast and it was pretty good.

The positivity for me is I feel like there’s some great stuff in Des Moines. I think from the outside you’d be like, oh, there must be nothing in Des Moines. But then you go there and you're like no, they actually have some really great food. There's a lot going on. It’s way busier and a fun little city, more than I think people realize.

Bubba is always a place I used to always go to. Yeah, Bubba was the spot.

And then I went to Proof a couple times. (Editor's note: Proof closed in November 2022.)

More: Everything to know about the IndyCar races in Newton this weekend, from drivers to concerts

The Register: You're coming to Iowa as the newest Indy 500 winner. How does that feel?

Newgarden: Yeah, it’s interesting. You know, for me, it’s kind of like old news. I say that in a funny way, but also semi-serious. You know, racing is a tough sport because they have these cliche sayings like you’re only as good as your last race. We are a performance-driven industry, and you’re either performing or you’re not, and it does move that quickly.

It’s race after race, and you got to keep it up. It’s not just, we won the biggest race three races ago. Well, no one really cares now that we’re heading to Iowa. It’s like well, who’s going to be good at Iowa, you know?

So that's kind of where I’m at. That’s how I operate as an individual as much as I love for our team to have that success together. The Indy 500 is a big deal for all of us. We put so much into it. But, I'm very much on what’s the next race. What are we doing the next time out? Because I just always want to be ahead of the curve and make sure that we are always in the conversation. If you're in the conversation and things are going well, you’re fighting for the championship and that is a good thing. That’s what keeps us employed and keeps us moving forward.

The Register: It seems that you prefer ovals.

Newgarden: No. It kind of goes back to my original comment. I love the challenge that IndyCar represents because it isn’t dominated by one thing or another. You have to be very good across the board, and if you’re not, then you’re not going to win the championship.

You take great satisfaction in winning a championship in IndyCar because you’ve had to be so good at so many places. I mean, that’s what makes it so special.

I don’t have a preference necessarily between road races, street courses or ovals, but I’m very fond of oval racing.

The Register: I’ve been watching some of your YouTube show, “Bus Bros.”

Newgarden: It’s a silly little thing that me and my teammate have been doing. It started with great enthusiasm and our enthusiasm is waning because they’re hard to do. You’ve got to commit a lot of time to put these episodes together.

I think it’s fun because it brings a different side out of us on a race weekend outside of our very serious and results-driven jobs that we are in. That was kind of the premise behind it was to just show people another side of drivers at the race weekend.

The Register: Are you planning to do another one while you’re here?

Newgarden: I think the plan is to do one at Iowa again.

I basically avoided the bus life for a long time, which is also part of the reason we made this show because my teammate got a bus last year. He sort of coaxed me into getting one finally and I’d been doing it 10 years without a bus.

That was where the joke kind of came from anyway. We call the show, “Bus Bros,” which doesn’t really make any sense for the show.

The Register: Anything else you look forward to in Iowa that you might want to talk about?

Newgarden: I like this new festival atmosphere that Hy-Vee has created. Honestly, that sounds like a marketing line and a plug, and it sort of is but it’s also the truth.

I like it because it’s made this whole vibe that I talked about, this "Feld of Dreams" sort of an illusion when you're there. It’s one of my favorite races of the year even though I don’t want to pick favorites.

Susan Stapleton is the entertainment editor and dining reporter at The Des Moines Register. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, or drop her a line at sstapleton@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: What Josef Newgarden loves about Iowa, from the speedway to restaurants