MADISON, Ill. — A penalty during Indy NXT by Firestone qualifying couldn’t stop Myles Rowe as the Georgia native won the 75-lap race at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway despite starting on the last row of the grid, the most positions gained for a win in the history of IndyCar’s development series.
“I think it was a chess game out there,” Rowe said. “I think confidence is key and Abel Motorsports, Force Indy the guys, they really gave me a car to have that kind of confidence to have a plan and be able to execute it and yeah, just so thrilled I can give this to them. Especially after the disappointment yesterday and having to start in the back, this is no doubt awesome.”
Rowe had a two-lap qualifying average that would have put the 25-year-old on the outside of the front row. However, he did an extra lap after his qualifying run instead of going to pit road, forcing race control to throw out his run, which averaged 162.560 mph.
“I knew it was my last lap. I even lifted,” Rowe said. “The radio was silent for whatever reason. I just put my foot back to the throttle because normally that’s just another push lap. Obviously I had to go through one and two. I was like, ‘Surely they’ll come on the radio and be like checkered, pit.’ Nothing happened. At that point it’s might as well just go instead of not finishing the next lap…