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The Hendersonville native sits in 19th place with seven races remaining. He has no wins, has wrecked out of the last three races and has had mechanical issues in others. Penalties imposed on his No. 2 team by IndyCar have led to firings of three executives by Team Penske. Since a third-place finish in the season opener at St. Petersburg, he has had just one top-10 finish (a ninth-place at Detroit). He’s led 27 laps all season, 25 coming at Illinois.

Other Team Penske drivers are struggling, also. But Newgarden, 34, was the one answering questions Wednesday during a media availability at Brewhouse South (next to Cool Springs Galleria) where he also greeted fans and promoted the Aug. 31 Borchetta Bourbon Music City Grand Prix at Nashville Superspeedway, which will serve as the season finale.

“Speed bump is a mild way to put it,� Newgarden said of the season. “It’s more like we’ve hit a land mine. But you hit a land mine, you rebuild the car and you keep going. We’re looking for the next race and excited to go to Iowa.�

Indy Car is running a doubleheader at Iowa with races today and tomorrow. Next week comes the trip to Toronto (which took the date from Nashville Superspeedway in the late 2000s), Monterey, Portland and the Milwaukee Mile before the finale at Nashville.

When things haven’t gone off the rails, Newgarden’s No. 2 has shown good speed this season.

“it’s not speed,� he said. “The majority of our results not transpiring haven’t been speed. Sometimes it’s been outside of our control. More times than not it’s been stuff outside of our control. Sometimes It’s mistakes here or there. It’s just one of those bizarre years in the cycle. We just keep going. We go to the next race and we do the same thing. I don’t think we should be changing our process, which we’re not right now.

“Every weekend is new. I stopped thinking about what can go wrong. You think about it, probably something will go wrong. We focus on each race individually. You get on a wave like this, it doesn’t last forever… Everybody in racing has a short memory. You can be a hero one minute and you can be a loser the next. One race changes the wave and mindset of everybody. The good thing is we got a lot of racing to do.�

As the name suggests, Indy racing revolves around the Indianapolis 500, which has been run since 1911 and is world famous. Nashville Superspeedway hosted the series from the track’s 2001 opening until 2008 when the date moved to Toronto. It returned to middle Tennessee in 2021 with the Music City Grand Prix on a street course in downtown Nashville. When construction began on the Tennessee Titans new stadium, the race was moved to Wilson County and became the season finale in which the points champion would be crowned in addition to the race winner. Alex Palou took the points title last year and holds a commanding lead this season.

“Other than the Indy 500, there is really not a better place to win an IndyCar race than Nashville,� said Newgarden, who finished third in last year’s race, his first on the 1.33-mile concrete D-oval. “The race last year was a good show. It’s harder to do than it looks. Sometimes we get the formula right on the ovals. It’s the same for any oval-racing series. You look at a Cup car, you look at an Indy car, it’s not an exact science. How do you build a good oval-racing package. I think we landed on something that worked really well last year. The key for us is having a second lane. The package we put on track delivered two-lane racing. It’s kind of what we have to have to produce a good show. We had that last year.

“The Nashville atmosphere is really second only to Indy. Indy is going to be difficult to beat for anybody. It’s difficult for anyone in the world to beat it. But Nashville definitely comes right behind it and I think they did a great job.�

IndyCar may be the most diverse racing league in the world with its mix of road and street courses in addition to the various ovals.

“I really don’t have a favorite type (of racing),� Newgarden said. “I like how diverse IndyCar is. You can see other forms of motorsport that are trending in our direction. You got series like NASCAR that want to open up their portfolio a little bit. No one has really ever had the diversity of IndyCar racing. It’s part of the DNA of what IndyCar racing is.

“I don’t have a favorite. I like the fact we go from street course one weekend to road course, to oval, to short oval to superspeedway. They’re all so different. That’s sort of the fun of it.�

Nashville Superspeedway, one of just three concrete tracks in NASCAR, is the only facility with that surface in Indy.

“That’s a good track surface,� Newgarden said. “For us it worked really well. It comes down to more than the track surface. It’s the tire, the aero package. There’s not an exact science on how you produce a good racing show on an oval. I feel like we landed on a good package last year and we’re not going to change it, at least from my understanding, and hopefully we can have the same good race that we had.�

Single-day tickets on saleSingle-day tickets are on sale. Tickets for the Saturday, Aug. 30 qualifying and practice sessions start at $40, with kids’ tickets available for $10 when accompanied by an adult ticketholder. Sunday tickets, which will cover the IndyCar Series race as well as the IndyNXT finals, start at $50. Weekend tickets start at $85.

Tickets, parking, camping, hospitality passes and more can be purchased at or by calling the ticket office at 866-RACE-TIX (866-722-3849).