by The first time Josef Newgarden woke up Monday morning, he felt like the world was spinning around him.
The second time the two-time IndyCar champion woke up Monday morning, he was worried.
“It was very sudden. I woke up in the middle of the night and started feeling dizzy,” the two-time Indianapolis 500 winner told The Tennessean as he returned home from a doctor’s visit Monday afternoon. “I’ve never had that.”
Newgarden, who grew up in Hendersonville, was sleeping in his own bed because he was in town for Sunday’s Music City Grand Prix at Nashville Superspeedway.
So, after thinking about his options, he decided to consult his physiotherapist.
“I thought, ‘I think this is muscular,'” Newgarden said.
By Monday afternoon, after a 90-minute session, he felt back on track.
“I think everything is fine,” he said.
Just in time for him to continue preparing for the IndyCar Series season finale. This year’s race will take place from the streets of Nashville to the Lebanon oval.
Josef Newgarden on disqualification: “It was enlightening”
Josef Newgarden woke up on Monday morning, March 11, as the winner of the season-opening Grand Prix in St. Petersburg.
Newgarden woke up on Wednesday, April 24, without being the winner of the season-opening Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.
Six weeks after the victory, IndyCar disqualified Newgarden and one of his teammates after it was determined they had violated rules surrounding the use of its push-to-pass system, designed to make racing more exciting.
Essentially, the mechanism gives cars short bursts of power – 150 to 200 seconds per race – at the push of a button and is used at the driver’s discretion.
“You have to learn to deal with these things, even when you least expect them,” Newgarden said. “I can tell you that no one in our group expected something like this to happen on our doorstep.”
“It’s been enlightening in many ways for me as an individual and as a competitor,” he said. “I didn’t ask to be put in this situation…
“In many ways, I’m grateful. You have to understand people’s true intentions and their true personality at the end of the day, and it’s allowed me to discover the ambitions of a lot of people.”
His other win this season, besides Indy, was also marred by controversy and earned teammate Will Power the finger. Newgarden’s late and slow restart with nine laps to go was questioned and contributed to a crash that forced Power to retire from the race.
Josef Newgarden Never Raced at Nashville Superspeedway
Josef Newgarden would wake up on Saturday and Sunday mornings as a child in Hendersonville, eager to watch the races that took place just over 30 miles away in Lebanon.
He will wake up this Sunday morning with the desire to participate in a race there.
The fact that this year’s competition is moving from the streets of downtown to the paved oval on the city’s east side only adds to the intrigue for Newgarden, who has two wins and six top-10 finishes this season.
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“I used to watch races at Nashville Superspeedway when I was younger,” he said. “I never got a chance to race there.
“To a certain extent, I would have loved the Broadway race. I was excited about that. Personally, I’m just as excited to go there (to Nashville Superspeedway).”
Newgarden finished fourth in last year’s Nashville race and was in contention for the series championship heading into this one.
This year he is in eighth place with 365 points; the disqualification from the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg cost him 53 points.
“Funnily enough, it seems like a long time ago,” Newgarden said of the season-opening race. “That situation in particular was very difficult.”
Paul Skrbina is an enterprise sports reporter who covers the Predators, Titans, Nashville SC, local colleges and local sports for The Tennessean. Reach him at pskrbina@tennessean.com and on X (formerly known as Twitter) @paulskrbina. Follow his work here.
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This article was originally published on Nashville Tennessean: Josef Newgarden excited for Music City Grand Prix Nashville Superspeedway
