NEWTON, Iowa — The NTT IndyCar Series race at Iowa Speedway is back rolling. The action is on NBCSN.
The race resumed at 12:40 a.m. ET after a second rain delay. Following an initial delay of more than four hours, the race started at 11:50 p.m. ET. The race was stopped on Lap 56 with Team Penske's Josef Newgarden leading.
Newgarden, who started third, took the top spot from teammate Will Power amid Turn 1 traffic on Lap 46.
A race doesn't become official until the lap past the halfway mark, which in this case would be Lap 151.
The race saw caution on Lap 16 when Sage Karam spun off the fourth turn and was clipped by series rookie Felix Rosenqvist. Neither car suffered much damage, but each fell off the lead lap with Karam losing two laps.
The race is airing on NBCSN with a broadcast on the Advance Auto Parts INDYCAR Radio Network.
With the storm front coming through central Iowa, temperatures dropped from the upper-90s earlier in the day to 73 degrees at the start of the race. The heavy rain made for a clean track.
The command to start engines came at 11:46 p.m. ET. Team Penske's Simon Pagenaud was the pole sitter for the second week in succession.
The top 10 at the time of the red flag: Newgarden, Power, Pagenaud, Takuma Sato, Alexander Rossi, rookie Santino Ferrucci, James Hinchcliffe, series rookie Marcus Ericsson, Ed Carpenter and Spencer Pigot.
The first rain arrived at 6:45 p.m., just 15 minutes before the Iowa 300 was set to kick off. Then conditions deteriorated in a hurry.
Here is what teams and drivers did in the paddock during the rain delay:
The INDYCAR paddock didn't let that dampen their spirits too much, though. Here's how they passed the time while the storms passed over Newton.
Will Power tracked down Ed Carpenter.
The Rahal Letterman Lanigan guys passed the time with a nice game of catch.
Meanwhile, Marco Andretti was (jokingly) ready to roll. He's driven on slicks in the wet before.
Then again, with lightning like this, probably best to keep that No. 98 parked.
Per usual, weather apps were useless in all of this.
And while all this rain pretty much crushed our spirits, we're ready to race under the lights. And we got some really great photos of Iowa Speedway.
The dryers are on track as of 8:15 p.m. and wow. The sky just keeps putting on a show.
Luckily, our guy Colton Herta got the green light to stay up late tonight.