Siti Muinah
BRISTOL, Tenn. — For most professional racing drivers, the boundaries of their respective disciplines serve as ironclad career parameters. Open-wheel stars rarely sample the heavy, fender-bashing world of stock cars, and NASCAR veterans seldom dabble in the high-speed, precision-engineered domain of IndyCar. Yet, even in an era of hyper-specialization, the cross-pollination of motorsport talent remains a tantalizing "what if" for fans and drivers alike.
Enter Josef Newgarden. At 35 years old, the Team Penske stalwart has firmly established himself as a titan of the NTT IndyCar Series. With a pair of championship trophies and two gleaming Indianapolis 500 victories—including a thrilling back-to-back triumph at the Brickyard—Newgarden is profoundly content with the legacy he is building. He commands one of the most coveted seats in global motorsport, piloting the No. 2 machine for "The Captain," Roger Penske.
Yet, beneath the polished exterior of a premier open-wheel contender beats the heart of a pure racing fan. As Newgarden prepares to take the wheel of the pace car for Saturday’s iconic Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway in his home state of Tennessee, he confesses that his racing bucket list contains one glaring, albeit historically improbable, entry: he wants to race a NASCAR Cup Series car. And not just anywhere—he wants to throw a 3,400-pound stock car into the hellacious, high-banked, half-mile concrete blender known as "The Last Great Colosseum."
Main Facts: The Intersection of Open-Wheel Royalty and Stock Car Desires
The narrative surrounding Newgarden’s NASCAR aspirations resurfaced ahead of the Bristol Night Race, where the Tennessee native was handed ceremonial pacing duties. While the assignment is meant to be a fun, promotional nod to his racing pedigree, those closest to him recognize the inherent danger of feeding a dormant fire.
According to his Team Penske NASCAR counterpart, Austin Cindric, putting Newgarden in the pace car at Bristol is a guaranteed way to stoke an already persistent itch. Newgarden admits that the fascination dates back to his teenage years, when he would attend short-track races as a spectator, well before he ever carved out a legendary career in open-wheel racing. Early in his professional career, he even sampled an experiential stock car around a track layout, cementing an appreciation for the discipline that has never faded.
"I mean, if I had an opportunity to drive a Cup car, it would be here at Bristol, 100 percent," Newgarden said ahead of the weekend’s festivities. "Probably anything in that half-a-mile to a mile length; I love short-track racing. That’s what I would prefer. I think Richmond would be amazing to drive, and I still think we need to go to Richmond with IndyCar as well. But if I drive a Cup Series car, Bristol would be at the top of my list."
The paradox of Newgarden’s dream, however, is that his peers in the NASCAR garage have offered a unanimous warning: Bristol is arguably the worst, most unforgiving venue possible for a Cup Series debut. The high-banked concrete oval yields frantic, chaotic racing where bumper-to-bumper contact is the norm, requiring a specialized suite of car control skills that take years to master.
Chronology: A History of Penske Drivers and NASCAR Crossovers
To understand why Newgarden’s dream remains largely a fantasy, one must look at the historical precedent within Team Penske. Roger Penske fields powerhouse operations in both IndyCar and the NASCAR Cup Series, making him uniquely positioned to orchestrate a cross-discipline crossover. In practice, however, "The Captain" has historically maintained a strict firewall between his racing programs.
Over the years, several of Penske’s elite IndyCar drivers have pushed for a shot at NASCAR:
- The Helio Castroneves Era: For years, legendary Brazilian driver Helio Castroneves lobbied Roger Penske for a one-off NASCAR start. The request was a perennial non-starter under the Penske banner. Castroneves would not get his taste of NASCAR competition until much later in his career, after parting ways with Penske and joining other racing ventures.
- Will Power’s Leverage Attempt: When Australian star Will Power captured his coveted Indianapolis 500 victory, he believed the monumental win would finally give him the political leverage to make Penske budge on a NASCAR audition. It did not happen.
- The Exception to the Rule: Sam Hornish Jr. successfully transitioned from the Indy Racing League (IRL) to NASCAR under the Penske umbrella, but that move came after he had thoroughly conquered the open-wheel landscape, capturing an Indy 500 win and multiple titles, marking a permanent career pivot rather than a casual one-off weekend.
Newgarden is well aware of this organizational history. He harbors no illusions that his own Indy 500 rings will suddenly convince Penske to grant him a NASCAR weekend.
"I have a job and a role to look after," Newgarden reflected. "IndyCar racing—it’s great to be in the position that I’m in. I love my side of the sport. I would like to do more, but the landscape is different than it was 30-40 years ago."
Supporting Data: The Modern Era of Specialization
The primary barrier preventing Newgarden from jumping into a Next Gen Cup car is not a lack of talent, but rather the unprecedented levels of specialization defining modern motorsport.
In past decades, drivers regularly bounced between disciplines. Mario Andretti, A.J. Foyt, and Tony Stewart famously competed in Indianapolis 500s, NASCAR Crown Jewel events, and sports car endurance races within the same calendar years. Today, however, the engineering, data acquisition, and physical demands of top-tier racing leave zero margin for divided focus.
Newgarden breaks down the arithmetic of his commitment:
- The Financial Stake: Drivers at the elite level are compensated handsomely to deliver results and minimize catastrophic risk for their corporate partners and team owners.
- The Operational Focus: Team Penske operates championship-caliber programs on multiple fronts. Diverting engineering resources, testing time, or driver bandwidth away from the core IndyCar championship hunt is a non-starter.
- The Skill Disparity: Stock cars handle radically differently than high-downforce open-wheel machines. Without extensive testing in a simulator and on-track practice, stepping into a Cup race cold is a recipe for disaster—a reality underscored by Kyle Larson’s recent high-profile attempts to pull off the Indy-Charlotte "Double."
"I get paid a good amount of money to make sure I execute on race day in an Indy car for my team and to lead the team in the right direction and to keep everything in line," Newgarden explained. "And so that’s hard enough, to take away from that program. I understand the difficulty in trying to say ‘yes’ when someone says, ‘Hey, I want to go have fun and try something different.’"
Official Responses: Loyalty to the Crest
Despite acknowledging the logistical hurdles, Newgarden balances his practical mindset with an appreciation for what crossovers do for the broader sports entertainment landscape. He openly admits that drivers like Kyle Larson—who regularly jumps between sprint cars, NASCAR Cup machines, and Indy cars—bring immense excitement to the industry.
Yet, when push comes to shove, Newgarden’s loyalty to Team Penske and the IndyCar Series is absolute. He has reached the mountaintop of open-wheel racing and cherishes the daily grind with his crew on the No. 2 car. The thought of walking away from his current seat to chase pursuits in NASCAR or Formula 1 has never seriously crossed his mind.
"I am so focused on our program," Newgarden stated emphatically. "I mean, genuinely, I am very fortunate to be in the seat that I am. I’m having a great time. I love working with my crew. I just love it. I love showing up and getting the opportunity to go to work every weekend with the No. 2 car that I’m dealing with, and really our whole team at Team Penske on the IndyCar side."
He added with a bittersweet smile: "I love it. I don’t see (me) doing anything else, but I’m a race car driver. Would I love to go run a Cup race? Absolutely. So that’s never going to change. Maybe at some point in the future, if things change or I wind down, maybe that will present itself. I would love to do that in the future, but I don’t see when that would present itself for quite a while."
Implications: A Dream Deferred, Not Abandoned
The reality facing Josef Newgarden highlights a fascinating tension in modern motorsport: the conflict between corporate pragmatism and pure racing romance.
For Team Penske, the calculus is simple. Protecting the integrity and focus of their flagship IndyCar operation outweighs the marketing novelty of a driver crossover. For Newgarden, the priority remains winning more championships and etching his name alongside the all-time greats of open-wheel racing.
As he climbs behind the wheel of the pace car at Bristol Motor Speedway this weekend, the roar of the engines and the high-banked concrete walls will serve as a powerful reminder of roads untraveled. The fans in the grandstands may dream of seeing the two-time Indy 500 champion trading paint in a Cup car, and Newgarden himself certainly shares that curiosity.
However, until the chapters of his illustrious IndyCar career begin to wind down, that Bristol daydream will have to remain just that—a daydream safely confined to the passenger seat of a pace car, fueled by a lifelong passion for short-track racing that refuses to die.
Layla Zulfa
Pevita Pearce
Nila Kartika Wati
Asro
Nana Wu
Neng Nana
Ali Ikhwan