Race Report: Hy-Vee Homefront 250

NEWTON, Iowa (July 22, 2023) -- "We've got to try something different for tomorrow," Larry Foyt told his team after the Hy-Vee Homefront 250 in which both drivers, veteran and rookie, struggled in the 250-lap race around Iowa Speedway's high banks.

Moments after the race the drivers and engineers were debriefing in the engineering transporter as they tried to analyze why the cars were so difficult to drive. Once they sort it out, they will have a 10-minute warm-up session tomorrow morning to confirm they're headed in the right direction.

Today Santino Ferrucci started 25th in the No. 14 while Benjamin Pedersen started 28th in the No. 55; an issue with the technical inspection resulted in Pedersen not being allowed to qualify.

In the pre-race show, Country-Western singer Carrie Underwood performed for an hour as part of the Hy-Vee high entertainment weekend booked around the twin 250-lap events.

The race got underway with Will Power setting a torrid pace that only his teammates could maintain for the first 120 laps. Josef Newgarden took the lead on lap 12, relinquished it for a lap during his pitstop and was never headed thereafter. Scott McLaughlin, Pato O'Ward, Marcus Ericsson and Power (who lightly brushed the wall on lap 145, dropping him two spots down in the order), rounded out the top five. Ericsson passed Power on lap 211 for fourth. The top-five cars were the only ones on the lead lap.

Not on the lead lap were the Foyt cars, who went a lap down early in the race as it became quickly apparent that whatever problems they had in Friday's practice were not fixed in time for Saturday's race. They would eventually finish multiple laps down, but despite it all, they did finish the race which was slowed by just one caution on lap 152 when Graham Rahal hit the wall in Turn 4 after getting into the marbles. Ferrucci placed 26th and Pedersen 27th.

The Hy-Vee One Step 250 will be broadcast tomorrow afternoon on NBC starting at 2 p.m. ET.