Photo: Chris Owens
James Roe Jr claimed his first pole and best race result of 2024 in Indy Nxt’s most recent round, six weeks on from breaking his hand in a crash.
In the Detroit round at the start of June, the Andretti Global driver went into the wall at turn one in qualifying then had a crash in the race where an initial impact with the barriers was followed by being hit by HMD Motorsports’ Nolan Allaer.
However it was not until an MRI scan a month later did he discovered he had broken his right hand, and it required surgery for him to then return to the cockpit.
In between the crashes and the fracture diagnosis he had spun out of the race at Road America, come fifth in race one at Laguna Seca and retired from race two with a suspension issue, then finished a lap down at Mid-Ohio after clashing with team-mate Jamie Chadwick.
Roe bounced back in style at Iowa Speedway, the first oval of the season, where he finally showed his (less injured) potential.
No screwing around anymore!
Been a wild 7 days. Banged up my hand after contact at Detroit. MRI last Monday showed a fractured scaphoid in my right hand.
Thanks to the team at @OrthoIndy for getting me right into surgery and to Dr.Trammell, we’re cleared to race this week! pic.twitter.com/szzimYIkBl
— James Roe (@JamesRoe_IE) July 3, 2024
“Went to Detroit and was on a pole lap and hit the wall in the race, banged wheels, and anyhow found out four weeks later broke my hand in that incident. So Road America and Laguna were bad, and just managing things. And it kind of felt once you’re down, you’re always being kicked,” he reflected at Iowa.
“So we knew with the pace we had, pace wasn’t necessarily an issue at most of the tracks we went to. That was just a matter of executing. And thankfully this weekend, we almost had a perfect weekend.”
Roe had “a tricky race” as although he” had a very good car at the start”, there was a set-up issue.
“Unfortunately my front rollbar was stuck in position, I couldn’t move it. So I maxed out my rear bar for rotation,” he explained after finishing second to team-mate Louis Foster, who passed him with two minutes of the race to go.
“So got to a point and I said this is the balance. So just hung on from there and in fairness to Louis, he had a mega run and as we race each other as team-mates, that’s first and foremost. So super happy. Pole, P2 and a lap record, we’ll take that.”
Stating “it is what it is” on his costly rollbar issue, he added: “It is what it is. It’s been a mega weekend for us, pole, 1-2-3 [in qualifying] for Andretti, one-two in the race. We’d be very happy with that pole and P2 after the last few weeks we had, still driving with a broken hand.”