Photo: James Black
Andretti Global’s Lochie Hughes was left in shock by his own charge up the order to win Indy Nxt’s first oval race of 2025 at Gateway.
Hughes started fifth, lost a position on lap two then began making progress on lap 46 of 75. When those ahead struggled to lap slower cars, Hughes capitalised and went from fourth to first between laps 59 and 62. He won with a 4.3521-second gap.
“It was pretty cool. I don’t know what to say. Still kind of in shock,” was Hughes’ victory reaction in the post-race press conference.
“We were just so far behind in the beginning there, and the car balance wasn’t feeling great. It wasn’t until we got the traffic and I was like ‘I don’t really care anymore’ because I was in sixth. So I started riding the high line and I was like: ‘ooh! there’s some grip out here!’. Then just kept the foot in to it and I got a little bit better with how I was using it. And next minute we were in the lead.”
Hughes credited “IndyCar’s high-line practice” for laying rubber down there, but it was unclear how grippy it would be.
“These ovals, they’re kind of scary so you’re kind of scared to go out there. So no one really knows. It’s always the unknown. You don’t know unless you try. As soon as I put the car there, I was like ‘yeah, it stays’, so I committed to it.”
Once he caught them, Hughes took two laps to go around the outside of team-mate Dennis Hauger and HMD Motorsports’ Caio Collet, the long-time top two.
“I’d just got by Myles [Rowe], and we actually made a little bit of contact through [turn] three I think. I was catching a lapped car, sort of rolled around the outside of a lapped car through [turn] three, and Dennis was right there.
“We were really closing in on Dennis, and I was like ‘oh, we’re about the pass the pole-sitter’. Then all of a sudden Caio was there, and we had great momentum. It’s like an Eminem song, ‘round the outside’.”
It was Hughes’ third race on an oval, having done one in both USF2000 and USF Pro 2000.
“I would say this is kind of like the first real oval race I’ve had. In the USF series, Lucas Oil [Raceway] is a great oval but it’s super hard to pass. And it’s very different the way you race. You’re just running the high line the whole time. So this type of oval racing is kind of scary. You’ve got to throw it on the dash a little bit, and just sort of hold on. So I didn’t really know what to expect.
“But after that race, I loved it. I thought it was awesome. I’m sure there was a lot of other people who didn’t like it so much. But yeah, if that’s what every oval race is like: bring it on.”