Americans dominated the Iowa Corn 300 at Iowa Speedway Saturday night, with Honda’s Ryan Hunter-Reay edging out Team Chevy’s Josef Newgarden for the win under the lights. Rookie Sage Karam slotted in behind his fellow Americans in third, making for the first all-American IndyCar pole since the 2006 Indianapolis 500 Mile Race.
Hunter-Reay edged out Newgarden by just by .5046 of a second to win at Iowa after battling with the 24-year old on the.894-mile oval for much of the race. The result, which is Hunter-Reay’s first win of 2015, makes the Honda driver the ninth different winner in 13 IndyCar races so far this year.
“The No. 28 DHL Honda was on rails at the end,” Hunter-Reay told IndyCar post-race. “This one we really had to work for. After a tough season, this one is really nice.”
The race was drama-free for much of its duration, save for a spat between Karam and Ed Carpenter. Veteran Carpenter felt as though Karam raced him dangerously and at one point called for Karam to be handed a penalty over his radio. He wasn’t the only one unimpressed with Karam’s driving style, as Graham Rahal also chimed in to criticize the youngster.
“We can’t drive like that,” Rahal said. “The kid doesn’t respect anybody out there. He thinks he is better than everybody already and he is going to hurt somebody if he is driving like that. Ed looked calm compared to the way I thought he would be.”
“I mean Sage, you know I kept both of us from crashing and taking us from at least a top four until that, and IndyCar just lets him do whatever he wants,” Carpenter added. “He’s Sage Karam, he’s had his ass kissed from the day he was born, and he does whatever he wants… no respect.”
Karam, unsurprisingly, didn’t have much of a reaction to either drivers’ comments and stressed that his focus was on winning the race.
“He’s just angry at my driving,” Karam said. “He says I squeezed him a few times but it’s the same way he drove me. It’s hard racing. I’m going for wins and that’s how we’re driving. It’s close racing. It’s IndyCar racing. This ain’t go-karts or anything anymore. We’re going to race each other hard and we’re professionals and we know each other’s limits.”
“Tough luck for him.”
IndyCar reverts back to the road course next for the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio on August 2nd. For full results from the Iowa Corn 300, click here.
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