Indycar at Iowa Preview

This weekend the Izod Indycar Series returns to Iowa Speedway in Newton, Iowa for the eighth race of the 2010 season. This will be the fourth Indycar race at the 7/8-mile speedway with the first three races here being won by British drivers, twice by Dario Franchitti in 2007 and 2009 and Dan Wheldon in 2008. The race will be broadcast on Versus at 1:30 PM on Sunday, June 20th. The Indycar Series will also be joined by its three support series (Firestone Indy Lights, Star Mazda, USF2000) this weekend.

The Track



Iowa Speedway is located in Newton, Iowa, which is about 30 miles east of Des Moines. The track is similar in design to Richmond International Speedway with a sweeping frontstretch. The 7/8-mile track has turns banked at 12-14 degrees (12 at the lowest line, 14 at the highest line) and the frontstretch has 10 degree banking.

Last Year's Race (click here to watch highlights)

The race was essentially a battle between Tony Kanaan and Dario Franchitti in the first half of the race, before Tony crashed on lap 109. Afterward, it became a duel between Ryan Briscoe, who led the most laps with 85, and Franchitti who wound up winning by 5 seconds. Dario ran away from the field, lapping all but three other cars. Scott Dixon and Helio Castroneves made contact with each other early in the race, causing Dixon to puncture a tire and Helio to replace his front wing. Those two never really recovered enough to be major factors.

News from this past week

The only real news from the past week involved two of the American drivers who are struggling to find rides this season. American Graham Rahal was hired to drive Mike Conway's #24 Dad's Root Beer car as the Brit continues to recover from the injuries he sustained in a terrible crash on the last lap of the Indy 500. South African Tomas Scheckter, who replaced Conway at Texas, was quite upset by this as he felt that he deserved the ride as he raced with Dreyer & Reinbold Racing last year and ran quite well at Iowa.

The other bit of news involved American Ryan Hunter-Reay. RHR had a sponsorship deal with Izod set up through the Texas race but wasn't sure of his plans afterward. American Ethanol, who sponsored RHR two years ago, stepped up and will be footing the bill for him to run at Iowa this weekend. One can only hope that Ryan is able to run for the rest of the season as he is currently 6th in the standings, 45 points behind 1st.

Predictions

Seeing as how the Penske and Ganassi teams have won the last 16 oval races, odds are that they will once again find victory lane. However, the Andretti Autosport team has started to show signs of a resurgence and could find a way to knock of the two-headed monster. If I had to guess who the top 3 finishers would be, I would choose Dario Franchitti, Ryan Briscoe and Scott Dixon.

My sleeper pick is Tony Kanaan as he has looked strong at Iowa in the past. In 2008, TK had been dominating all day when his car got away from him heading into Turn 1 and he found the wall. In 2009, he had a similar result when he backed the car into the wall exiting Turn 2 after leading 48 of the first 109 laps. Don't be too surprised to see Kanaan in the hunt for the win if he can keep the car off of the wall.