LONG POND — It has been a breakout season for Josef Newgarden.
In the fourth year of his Verizon IndyCar Series career, the 24-year-old driver from Hendersonville, Tennessee, won his first two races and captured his first pole.
He led a total of 21 laps in his first three seasons; this season, he has led 298 laps. After 14 of 16 races, he ranks eighth in the point standings.
Newgarden hopes to keep things going this weekend when IndyCar heads to Pocono Raceway for the ABC Supply 500.
A big reason for Newgarden’s success is his team. CFH Racing debuted this season after the Ed Carpenter Racing and Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing teams merged.
“It’s been an interesting process taking two teams and merging them and trying to get on the same page and build confidence,” said Newgarden, who drove for the Sarah Fisher Hartman team in his first three seasons. “I think we’ve been able to do that throughout the year more and more. Each race we’ve come off of, I feel like we get stronger as a group and we get more confident as a group.
“I think we still have a lot of room to go. We haven’t even reached the ceiling yet.”
At Barber Motorsports Park in April is where Newgarden earned his and CFH Racing’s first win, taking the checkered flag in the Grand Prix of Alabama. He won again in Toronto in June, leading a 1-2 finish with CFH teammate Luca Filippi.
Also, in July, Newgarden won the pole at Milwaukee and finished second at Iowa.
First practice for the ABC Supply 500 at Pocono Raceway is Saturday at 9:30 a.m. Qualifying is at 2 p.m. with final practice set for 5:30 p.m. The race is scheduled for Sunday at 2:30 p.m.
Carpenter said it has been fun to watch Newgarden blossom this season and achieve several firsts in his IndyCar career.
“It was something that we talked about in the offseason and when we merged teams going into this year,” Carpenter said. “We talked about goals and things we thought we were capable of as a team and he was capable of as a driver.
“So to be able to accomplish those things together and to accomplish first together, it’s always something that you’ll remember for a long time and special to be a part of.”
Newgarden, who did not have a teammate at Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing, said it has been helpful having a veteran like Carpenter to seek out for advice.
“Ed’s a really good outlet for me,” Newgarden said. “As someone that’s been in the sport, he’s been able to see it a little different and give me a different opinion on what I’m doing. There is something to be said about experience, and for me to have access to that has been really good this year.”
The win at Barber came on a road course and the Toronto victory came on a street course.
Now, Newgarden would love to add a 500-mile triumph at Pocono to his resume.
His first two trips to the 2.5-mile triangular track in Long Pond resulted in top-10 finishes. Newgarden placed fifth there in 2013 and eighth last season.
Because Turn 2 at Pocono is modeled after Indianapolis and Turn 3 after Milwaukee, Newgarden believes that is one of the reasons why he quickly adapted to Pocono.
“You’re mixing two worlds that I was comfortable with,” Newgarden said. “I like Indy and I like Milwaukee. If you get those two mixes within the Pocono track, there is no real telling what recipe there is. We’ve been pretty decent there, but I think we’ve had good cars.
“Our goal this year is to go and try to move that needle up a bit. We’ve been in the top five and been in the top 10. So it will be nice to get in the top three and hopefully, maybe, win the race this year.”
Despite his eighth-place standing and there being only two races left in the season, Newgarden is one of 10 drivers mathematically eligible for the series title. With 370 points, he trails leader Juan Pablo Montoya by 95.
After Pocono, the season finale at Sonoma is a double-points race.
But Newgarden isn’t thinking about that. His focus is on maximizing his result.
“If we’ve got a winning car, I think we try to secure first place,” he said. “If we’re a fifth-place car for the weekend, we try to get no worse than fifth.
“Whether you’re in the championship or not, I think we try to do that every weekend. The easiest thing for us is we’ll go with the same gameplan and hopefully have winning race cars, which I think we will, and compete for victories.”