Iowa Speedway track conditions, heat have IndyCar drivers on the edge for Iowa Corn 300

NEWTON — Qualifying a Verizon IndyCar Series car on an oval almost always happens on a razor's edge of speed and handling.

The speeds the Hondas and Chevys reach are hard to wrap one's mind around anyway, but add a car's qualifying setup to the lack of grip on a hot and rough racing surface at Iowa Speedway and it's a recipe for barely being able to hang on.

That much was evident in defending IndyCar champion Simon Pagenaud joking he needs a new heart after his qualifying run. And it was evident in Iowa Corn 300 pole winner Will Power offering a nervous laugh when asked if he was confident rolling out for his qualifying run.

'No, I wasn't (confident). I wasn't,' Power said through the laugh. 'I saw Helio (Castroneves') run, so I didn't change my car. But I was very wary of people having big loose moments, so I was ready for it.'

Iowa Speedway is well-known for its abrasive and ever-changing racing surface — across all racing series — and might only be more stressful for the IndyCar drivers because they're covering the 7/8-mile lap in less than 18 seconds.

Drivers said before the qualifying session that thanks to the weather conditions — hot and sunny with no cloud cover — the early cars would be at a disadvantage due to less Firestone rubber laid down on a hot surface. With ARCA also racing Saturday night, different mixtures of rubber combined with the temperature made for that prediction coming true.

The top five qualifiers — Power, J.R. Hildebrand, Castroneves, Ed Carpenter and Takuma Sato — all went out in the second half of the qualifying order.

Power went out last, and the fact that the first two drivers' data showed they were basically hanging on throughout their runs — Pagenaud went out first and qualified 11th and Josef Newgarden went out third and qualified 16th — didn't calm his nerves. What did, even if just a bit, was Castroneves' run.

'I was a little worried when I saw my teammates' data and the gear trace; they were turning more right than left,' Power said. 'But when Helio went, who had a similar car to me, I thought, the track's coming in, and it seemed like people got more and more consistent, so I thought — I actually didn't even know what speeds JR was on, but I did my absolute best.

'You had 20 cars go before me laying new rubber. Yeah, the balance was pretty nice for me, so yeah, obviously at the beginning of that qualifying session it looked pretty bad, people were really struggling, but then as the rubber went down, it got better.'

While Power dealt with those nerves based on data, Hildebrand dealt with them based on experience from practice.

Hildebrand was in a mock qualifying run in the first practice Saturday morning, and spun out of Turn 2 and backed his car into the wall. The team was able to repair the car by replacing the rear wing — and the steering wheel, which broke when his legs hit it — and the very next run after his wreck was his qualifying attempt.

The Ed Carpenter Racing driver, who is in the No. 21 entry that won this race last year with Newgarden, said he had to 'psych yourself up a little bit' before the run, but that he owed it to his team not to have any reservations.

'When it comes down to it, it helps having a great team around you to know that if I go out there and commit in Turn 1 and have the exact same thing happen, they would rather I do that than pussyfoot through 1 and 2 and qualify in the middle of the field,' Hildebrand said. 'As the driver, you feel like you owe it to them to see what you can do. That's the difficult part of being a professional athlete in any form.'

Racecar drivers are wired a little differently. OK, a lot differently.

Whether it's Power shaking off data that suggested it wouldn't be a fun lap or Hildebrand having faith in the repairs and changes made by his team, the drivers are forced to throw caution to the wind in some respects.

Starting a race up front is important in any race, but at Iowa Speedway, where lapped traffic comes up quick and being fast in traffic is vital, qualifying means that much more.

Even on the razor's edge, they can't hold back.

'Sometimes you've got to go out there and say, 'Eff it,' and see if she sticks,' Hildebrand said. 'That's how we did it today.

'You do your best work when the track's (crappy). That's where you learn; that's where you figure out what you can do. Hopefully that bodes well tomorrow.'

Sunday's Iowa Corn 300 starts at 5 p.m. and can be seen on NBCSN.

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