The fourth NTT INDYCAR SERIES race of the month happens to be the first permanent road course of the season. Which means, it could be Alex Palou’s time to shine.

The champion of the past three seasons – and four overall -- won five of the seven such races last season, including the Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix powered by AmFirst at Barber Motorsports Park. Chip Ganassi Racing’s driver led 81 of the 90 laps on this 17-turn, 2.3-mile circuit and won by 16.0035 seconds, the largest margin of victory in the series since 2023 when teammate Scott Dixon won at World Wide Technology Raceway by 22.2256 seconds.

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Palou’s win at Barber Motorsports Park was one of five in last season’s first six races as he built an unsurmountable lead in the standings. The Spaniard clinched the title with two races left in the schedule.

But this year is different.

Palou has won only one of the season’s first three races – gasp! – and trails Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood in the standings by 26 points, 126-100. Kirkwood won the most recent race, the Java House Grand Prix of Arlington on March 15, giving him finishes of fourth, second and first to open the season.

The other race winner in 2026 is Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden, who captured the Good Ranchers 250 on March 7 at Phoenix Raceway. He and Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward follow closely behind Palou in the standings with 93 points each.

Scott McLaughlin

Team Penske Best at Barber

As is the case with many INDYCAR SERIES venues, Team Penske has set the standard at Barber Motorsports Park, winning eight of the 15 races.

Helio Castroneves won the inaugural race in 2010, and Will Power followed with two consecutive wins. Simon Pagenaud (2016), Newgarden (2017, 2018) and Scott McLaughlin (2023, 2024; photo, above) also have won at Barber for Roger Penske’s organization.

Newgarden said it’s not a coincidence based on the way the team prepares the cars.

“It really doesn't matter what car you're on,” he said of the team. “You can plug into any one of these cars, and they honestly feel the same. That’s the strength in the team, too. They've always tried to build it that way where they're not too heavy in one area or the other. Not all teams do that. That's very Penske-specific.”

Newgarden also won at Barber Motorsports Park for CFH Racing (now known as ECR) in 2015.

Palou is another multiple Barber winner, winning for the first time in 2021. O’Ward is the other former winner of the event in this 25-car field, taking the checkered flag in 2022.

Scott Dixon

Dixon Loves Track Without Winning

Dixon has a conflicted relationship with Barber Motorsports Park. In his career, he has won at 28 venues over the years, including both types of circuits in Japan, Detroit and Nashville. But this road course is not on his list.

Yet, Dixon (photo, above) has finished second in six races here and finished third three other times. That’s nine podium finishes in 15 races, a 60 percent success rate. Remarkably, Dixon finished on the podium each of the first six years, seven of the first eight years and eight of the first 10 years.

Dixon has never been the top Barber qualifier, but he started in the top six in each of the first 11 years and 12 times overall. His poorest two race results at the track have come in the past two years, finishing 13th and 26th, respectively.

Pato O'Ward

Arrow McLaren Set for Big Things

With O’Ward being a former series race winner at Barber Motorsports Park, it would be wise to keep an eye on Arrow McLaren this weekend.

O’Ward joins Kirkwood as the other driver with top-five finishes in each of the three races this season. O’Ward has opened the year with results of fifth, fourth and fifth.

Barber has been one of O’Ward’s better tracks through the years. In addition to the win in 2022 (photo, above), he won the pole in 2021 and has an average starting position of 3.6 in the past five races.

Teammate Christian Lundgaard also seems to go well at this track. He has finished sixth, fifth and second in the past three races, respectively.

Honoring George Barber

The weekend will honor the memory of George Barber, who founded Barber Motorsports Park and the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum. He died Feb. 15 following a brief illness. He was 85.

The Auburn University graduate served in the Alabama Air National Guard before becoming a standout sports car driver. Dan Gurney was one of the many drivers he competed against.

After selling the family’s dairy business in 1998, Barber began working toward what has become a motorsports gem in southeastern Birmingham (photo, top). The 880-acre campus is larger than New York City’s Central Park, and the museum stands at 230,000 square feet and includes more than 1,800 vehicles, including the world’s largest collection of motorcycles and Lotus race cars.

The flowing, 17-turn, 2.3-mile road course was designed for motorcycle racing, but Barber invited INDYCAR to stage a test in spring 2009. The combination of an exciting layout along with the picturesque setting – the track is often described as the “Augusta National of Racing – led to the first open-wheel race in 2010.

Barber became one of INDYCAR’s biggest supporters, and this will be the series’ 16th event. It continues to be a popular spring destination for fans of the series.

The Weekend Schedule

The first practice is set for 3:30 p.m. ET Friday (FS2). The session will be divided in three parts, with all cars eligible to practice for the first 40 minutes followed by a pair of split 12-minute segments to reduce traffic flow.

Saturday’s action includes the weekend’s second practice 11 a.m. ET (FS1) followed by qualifying for the NTT P1 Award at 2:30 p.m. ET (FS1). Sunday’s pre-race practice will be at 10 a.m. ET (FS2).

The 90-lap race is set for Sunday at 1 p.m. ET on FOX, FOX One, the FOX Sports app and INDYCAR Radio powered by OnlyBulls.