Lochie Hughes Aims To Shave Dennis Hauger's Lead at Road America
Lochie Hughes earned his fifth top-three finish in six INDY NXT by Firestone races this season via his victory June 15 at World Wide Technology Raceway.
Andretti Global rookie Hughes halved his deficit from 38 to 19 points to rookie teammate Dennis Hauger, who finished fifth on the 1.25-mile oval.
SEE: Event Details
Hughes is surging at the right time, and all eyes are on him heading into Road America for Sunday's 20-lap race around the 4.014-mile, 14-turn road course located between Milwaukee and Green Bay in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.
Here are some storylines to watch for Sunday's race airing at 11 a.m. ET on FS1, the FOX Sports app and the INDYCAR Radio Network.
Hughes Keeping Hauger Honest
Hughes and Hauger are rookies leading the way in 2025 in the INDYCAR development series.
Hauger had a firm grasp on the championship standings via four wins in the opening five races. However, Hughes remains in striking distance thanks to a 2.25 average finish over the last four races, compared to 3.75 from Hauger.
Road America could provide another thrilling battle between the duo.
Hughes has four wins in five junior category starts at the track, all coming in succession. He won the second race of the 2023 USF 2000 Championship, then swept the USF Pro 2000 series tripleheader at Road America last season.
Formula 2 veteran Hauger has never been to the track, but many mention the circuit is reminiscent of a European road course, which could help the 22-year-old contend for his fifth victory of 2025.
Road America Winner Often Becomes INDYCAR SERIES Mainstay
Road America has a reputation for spotlighting future INDYCAR SERIES stars. Based on recent history, winning at Road America doesn't guarantee a championship, but it does validate elite talent.
The winners' list since 2018 includes names of current drivers in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES, including Colton Herta (2018 winner), Rinus VeeKay (2019), Kyle Kirkwood and David Malukas (2021), Christian Rasmussen (2022) and Nolan Siegel (2023).
Can HMD Motorsports Halt Andretti Global Domination?
Andretti Global is 6-for-6 in INDY NXT by Firestone races this season, with Hauger winning four times and Hughes twice. Dating to Race 2 of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course weekend in 2024, the team has 15 wins in the last 17 series races.
At Road America, the team finished 1-2 last year via Jamie Chadwick's maiden victory. She beat eventual champion and teammate Louis Foster.
The level of control is impressive, but not impenetrable – especially at Road America, where HMD Motorsports has matched Andretti win-for-win over the last four races. Andretti Global has three wins in its last eight Road America starts compared to HMD scoring three in the last four.
Does that open the door for second-year HMD Motorsports driver Caio Collet?
The Brazilian earned his first oval pole last weekend at WWTR and led 58 of the first 61 laps before fading to third in the closing laps. He remains third in the standings but gained five points on Hauger, trailing by 79.
Collet is heating up with four podiums this season, three coming in the last four races. He has a sixth-place average finish in 11 natural road course starts, which includes four top-two results. Collet finished fifth as a rookie at Road America last year.
His teammate Josh Pierson is having a career year and could be a surprise contender this weekend. Pierson is sixth in points with four top-six finishes in the last five races. The 19-year-old Oregon native finished a career-best fourth June 1 on the streets of Detroit.
Does Andretti remain perfect in 2025, or can a well-timed HMD victory break the streak?
Rowe, De Alba Showing Strong Consistency
The Hughes and Hauger show has grabbed most of the INDY NXT by Firestone headlines. But there's a cluster of talented drivers quietly stacking results and building momentum. If any of them catch fire over the next few rounds, the title race could become much hotter.
In addition to Collet, Myles Rowe has arguably been the one of the most consistent drivers outside of Andretti Global with five top-four finishes in six starts this season for ABEL Motorsports, including three podiums in the last four. He gained seven points on Hauger at WWTR by finishing runner-up and is 88 points back in the standings. Rowe has enjoyed success at Road America on multiple rungs in the junior categories. Rowe finished runner-up in both USF2000 races at Road America in 2022, and second and fourth in USF Pro 2000 in 2023.
Andretti Global driver Salvador de Alba isn't displaying flashy numbers like his rookie teammates, but he's delivering steady results with four top-five finishes in six races, including three in the last four. He finished 21st at Road America last year.
Track Specs: 4.014-mile, 14-turn permanent road course (clockwise), in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin
Qualifying Record: Kyffin Simpson, 1:49.1028, 132.448 mph, June 17, 2023
Push to Pass Parameters: 150 seconds of total time with a maximum time of 15 seconds per activation
recommended
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
USA Today
2 hours ago
- USA Today
How to watch IndyCar live in Portland in 2025, weekend schedule
The NTT IndyCar Series is ready for the upcoming action in Portland, marking the 15th official race weekend of the 2025 season. In 2024, Will Power won, with Alex Palou and Josef Newgarden rounding out the podium. IndyCar drivers and teams finally return to Portland, and they're ready to put on a show! Below, you can find more details about the on-track action in Portland this weekend! IndyCar live today: Portland Here are the upcoming practice, qualifying, and race times for the current race weekend on the IndyCar schedule (all ET). Watch IndyCar in Portland FREE on Fubo More: IndyCar schedule: Start times, TV networks, and more in 2025 We occasionally recommend interesting products and services. If you make a purchase by clicking one of the links, we may earn an affiliate fee. Motorsports Wire operates independently, though, and this doesn't influence our coverage.
Fox Sports
3 hours ago
- Fox Sports
Who Is Colton Herta? INDYCAR's Youngest Winner On Golf, Drums & Rescue Dogs
NTT INDYCAR SERIES Who Is Colton Herta? INDYCAR's Youngest Winner On Golf, Drums & Rescue Dogs Published Aug. 5, 2025 1:03 p.m. ET share facebook x reddit link What were you doing at 18 years old? Well, Colton Herta was winning at racing's highest levels. In 2019, he became the youngest driver ever (and still is) to win an INDYCAR race with a victory at Circuit of the Americas. Considering his father, Bryan, raced in INDYCAR, owned a race team that twice won the Indianapolis 500 and is now a strategist for Andretti Global, it was likely Colton's destiny to follow the family's racing legacy. Racing is in the blood of father Bryan and son Colton Herta. Herta, who moved from Nashville to Las Vegas in the offseason last year, talked about everything from growing up around racing and his drumming ability to his golf game and his rescue dogs. Who is Colton Herta? Who is Colton Herta? I'm a 25-year-old Southern California native, INDYCAR driver and American. How would your friends describe you? Probably, like, quiet. Not really outgoing. I guess maybe a little bit more outgoing on race weekends and for this sort of thing. But for the most part, I just keep to myself and avoid people. ADVERTISEMENT You're the youngest winner ever in the series ... does that mean you had no childhood? I guess not in the normal sense. From a young age, while kids were going to soccer practice and whatnot and on the weekends they'd go to soccer games, I'd get pulled out of school on Friday morning and go to the go-kart track for the weekend. So I guess normal in the sense that I knew a lot of kids my age from the go-kart track but definitely not the traditional sense of sports. I played normal sports growing up. I played soccer, football and baseball but never really past [ages] 8-10. Racing was always kind of a priority for me. And then, when I got older, my friends would be in high school, and I was living in England on my own. So very different. There are some similarities in my childhood that were normal and growing up, even though I did a little bit of a different sport. But then there are obviously some things that were very different. And it was a little bit higher pressure. A young Colton Herta behind the steering wheel. (via Herta's Instagram) Do you still play the drums? I haven't in a while. I can. I moved, and I never set up my drum set. I've just been too busy. And now, when I have free time. This season, I really haven't had any. Our season is pretty crazy right now. I enjoy golfing a little bit more. So I've been doing that more if I have any free time. In your prime, were you better than [fellow INDYCAR driver] Will Power on the drums? I don't know how good Will is. I've seen some videos. He seems like a really solid drummer. Do you know if you're better than [NASCAR driver] Bubba Wallace? I've seen Bubba play one time online. He seemed to be on a similar level with Will. If you had your drum set, what would you play? I never really liked playing to music. I like just jamming and messing around, learning new stuff and doing my own thing. I don't play golf because it takes coordination and patience. How are you finding trying to learn golf? It's a frustrating game. It's extremely difficult, but it's also extremely rewarding. And I think it's rewarding because ... you'll shoot 90 shots in your round and be happy with three or four of them. Those three or four are what keeps you coming back, that feeling of watching the ball fly. It's cool. And I've been fortunate enough to do some stuff around golf because of what I do. I've seen some pros play up close. I have a real appreciation for that sport because I know my inability in it and how amazingly easy they make it look. Colton Herta hits the links. (via Herta's Instagram) Living in Las Vegas now, you'd be able to do a lot more in the offseason than in Nashville? Nashville is difficult. I wasn't really into it until the offseason, too, until I moved to Vegas last offseason. So this is a little bit of a newer thing. Although I have played here and there, I never really fully got into it. I'm fully into it now. And you also have rescue dogs? Yes. If people are thinking about getting a rescue, what's the thing that people don't know about owning a rescue dog? For us, it's been pretty easy. For sure, there's probably stories and cases of dogs that are maybe a little bit less behaved or stuff because of trauma and what they've had to deal with. But for us, it's been really sweet. As long as you go to a reputable shelter, and they're honest for the most part and you know, you understand what you're getting into. And some people like the challenge of having a more challenging dog to train and whatnot. But our dogs have been really chill. I think we're lucky in that sense. Colton Herta has a passion for helping rescue dogs find homes.(via Herta's Instagram) What do you have? A Pit Bull and the other is half poodle, half Great Pyrenees. Is there a dog that you would like? My first dog growing up was a Golden Retriever. Gigi was her name. She was a great dog. I've always wanted to have a Golden Retriever. The Great Pyrenees mix — he acts quite a bit like a Golden Retriever. So maybe someday. And do the dogs come with you to the track? Sometimes. What's the key to having dogs in a motorhome? Oh gosh, I don't know. They're well-behaved, so they're good at chilling out. And I think if you have a super-hyper dog, it's not the place. But they're really good at just hanging out. Colton Herta and a rescue pup. (via Herta's Instagram) And you just moved to Vegas recently. So what are you discovering about Vegas that makes it nice? Is it kind of like a getaway from Indianapolis and the Midwest? It's very different from the Midwest. There's a lot more to do than people think. There's the obvious, but I don't really drink or gamble or do any of that, especially in season. There's a lot of great hiking, mountain biking, the lake right there, right outside of Las Vegas, Lake Mead. So there's a lot of cool outdoorsy things to do. There's a lot of good backpacking. The golf is amazing out there. And important for me, it's really close to my family in California, too. So it's easy to get back. It's a lot easier to have babysitters for the dogs if I need to go somewhere. You talk about being close to your family. But of course, your dad is in the sport, and actually you compete against him on a weekly basis. What's that dynamic like? And do you ever tell him, "Well, you should tell me that strategy. Why are you keeping that from me?" He's open about what he thinks is a good strategy for the race. Maybe if he was on a different team, it would be different. But because we're technically teammates in a sense; he's on the 27 [car of my teammate]. For me, it was such a huge plus, especially growing up with somebody like that. Not only was it the reason why I got into this sport, but I think it's also the reason why I was able to be so successful really early on. It's a big part in me being ready and able to win my third start in INDYCAR. It's had a huge, influential role. It's helped me coming up, not only get with the teams that I've gotten with and get to know the people that I've gotten to know but also just from a standpoint of driving and understanding how to make myself better. Colton Herta became INDYCAR's youngest winner at 18 years old in 2019. He didn't have it easy as a race car driver. Is there anything that you ever saw when he was racing that made you think you might not want to do this because you've seen the highs and the lows? No, because I was so young. He retired when I was 8 years old. At that point, I just thought it was the coolest job ever. And I didn't really see that aspect until I was racing and especially later, when I got into cars. Because in go-karts, it's a lot more — and I credit him for making it this way — it's a lot more fun than it is like, "Oh man, I did bad this weekend." I would do bad and then go play with my buddies. Nowadays, if I do bad, I'm just pissed off for a while. It's different now. But from that aspect, I really grew up in a really fun environment, and I think that's what made me love it. When I was a kid, I was very independent. And much like a lot of kids, I didn't want to hear what my parents told me. So if they created an environment that wasn't like that — [if there was] pressure, no fun … who knows. I probably would not be here. Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass. share
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
Former Spurs FC players swapping White Hart Lane for Taunton
TWO Tottenham Hotspur legends are set to be present at an event in Taunton - and you're invited. Somerset Spurs is one of over 560 official Tottenham Hotspur supporters clubs worldwide. The group regularly travel up to the club's Premier League, cup, and European fixtures home and away. The group have arranged something slightly different, with former players, Martin Chivers and Phil Beal, booked for a day all about the history of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. READ MORE: Eat The Bird, Taunton, closed with staff unpaid - for now READ MORE: Three Somerset County Cricket Club players leaving this winter The former players will be in Taunton on Sunday, September 14, alongside John Chambers and Paul Trevillion, for a guest speaking event. While a location has not been confirmed, tickets are available and are priced at £40. As well as being part of the speaking event, guests will be treated to a two-course meal and a souvenir photo. Tottenham Hotspur FC legends are coming to Taunton in Somerset. (Image: SomersetSpurs) Tickets can be acquired by visiting
