IndyCar champ cheers racing in the north
Driver Josef Newgarden got a taste of culture at Mosport in 2008
Is Canada one of the best grassroots open-wheel racing destinations anywhere?
Josef Newgarden, who will be in town later this week to race in next Sunday’s Honda Indy Toronto, thinks so.
That’s right: the 27-year-old reigning Verizon IndyCar Series champion, who is as American as apple pie hailing from Henderson, Tenn., happily heaps praise on the single-seat racing culture north of the border.
He dipped his toe into it in 2008, when he spent a weekend under the canopy of longtime Formula 1600 team owner Brian Graham at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park (née Mosport). Newgarden and another successful young American racer, Conor Daly, were that year’s recipients of the Team USA Scholarship and raced with Graham to warm up for their ultimate prize, the chance to compete in the Formula Ford Festival in the United Kingdom.
“That event that I did up there, it was tons of fun,” Newgarden recently told the Toronto Star. “Canada has always, I think, provided some of the best openwheel racing you can get.
“Look at Mosport, which is such a great facility, an awesome old-school racetrack, and then Toronto (Exhibition Place circuit), where I’ve been able to run for the last five or six years (and winning the 2015 and 2017 Honda Indys).
The Team USA Scholarship’s investment was evidently worthwhile. Newgarden won the festival’s Kent class that year, making him the first and still the only American driver to win any class at the internationally esteemed event.
From there, it didn’t take long for his career to launch.
After spending a couple of years taking a run at a career in Europe, Newgarden returned stateside in 2011 to compete in the Indy Lights championship. He won five races on his way to winning the title in his very first go-around.
That awarded him a scholarship to launch his rookie campaign with Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing.
After three formative years — Newgarden finally scored his long-anticipated first win in 2015 with CFH Racing and then a second victory a few weeks later right here in Toronto.
When he followed that up with another stellar season with Carpenter in 2016, he got the call every racer hopes to receive: he’d caught the attention of Roger Penske.
His faith paid off quickly. Newgarden scored four wins and nine podiums overall across 17 races to win the overall championship in 2017 in his very first season with Penske Racing.
Newgarden’s road to a repeat is off to a steady start, though his results have seen a slight loss in momentum since his second win of the year at the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama in April.
With a pair of victories in Toronto under his belt, his visit could mark a season turning point. On the other hand, he has a win-or-bust history here.
“It’s a street course trait,” he says. “It’s tough being consistent at a place like that. It can breed chaos, which is part of why you love it.”