NXT Gen Notebook: Rowe Show takes centre stage as record tumbles at Gateway
- Archie O’Reilly
- Jun 10
- 8 min read
History was made in Indy NXT at World Wide Technology Raceway (WWTR) last weekend as Abel Motorsports’ Myles Rowe completed the series’ biggest-ever comeback drive.
Confined to starting at the back of the field in 24th, Rowe took the lead on Lap 47 of 75 and went on to secure his third NXT victory with one of the IndyCar ladder’s all-time great drives. He led home AJ Foyt Racing’s Alessandro de Tullio and Andretti Global’s Josh Pierson.
DIVEBOMB presents the story of an epic at WWTR, better known as Gateway…
Drama dominates qualifying
On Saturday, it was Andretti’s Lochie Hughes who took a much-needed pole position after a challenging year so far, which included finishing 21st in Detroit the weekend prior.
“I’m happy,” he reacted. “It’s been a rough start to the year. My mind has been a bit like a pretzel so I’m relieved to have a pole position. Hopefully we can back it up with a win - that’s what we need. But this is nice. It’s some momentum going the right way.”
Hughes’ 162.578 mph two-lap run stood tall above de Tullio’s 162.363 mph average, as the Argentine driver secured his seventh successive front-row start in his first oval event in NXT. Creating an intriguing front row, Hughes had been culpable for wiping out pole-sitting de Tullio on Lap 1 in Detroit. But this qualifying outcome only told part of the story.
Having recorded a 162.560 mph average, which would have placed him second, Rowe was disqualified from the session after running an additional lap following his two-lap run. Classed as a failure to follow race director’s instructions, his result was forfeited.
“I knew it was my last lap. I even lifted,” Rowe said of the incident that forced him to start at the rear, fueling Sunday’s stunning drive. “The radio was silent for whatever reason. I just put my foot back to the throttle because normally that [means] another push lap.
“I was like: ‘Surely they’ll come on the radio and be like: ’Chequered. Pit.’’ Nothing happened. At that point, it’s ‘might as well just go instead of not finishing the next lap’. Honestly, it was all on me. For sure, I knew it was the last lap and should have pitted.
“We’ve been having radio issues the whole season. We did a whole kit change and everything to make sure I can hear clearly. It’s just a communication error.”
That was not the end of the drama, either. Set to run last, owing to his leading of the championship, Enzo Fittipaldi was barred from competing in the session after his HMD Motorsports team found a fuel leak en-route to pit lane. The offending ruptured fuel cell was replaced but technical inspection had closed once the work was completed.
Having topped the weekend’s sole practice session earlier in the day, Fittipaldi was left to share the back row with Rowe for his maiden single-seater oval race.
To Hughes’ bemusement, his pole was confirmed after the intended-penultimate run from Cape Motorsports powered by Ed Carpenter Racing (ECR)’s Nikita Johnson, who placed fifth, behind Hughes, de Tullio and a second row of Andretti duo Max Taylor and Pierson.
HMD’s Tymek Kucharczyk, whose only career oval race was in a USF Pro 2000 car at Indianapolis Raceway Park last month, qualified sixth, ahead of Chip Ganassi Racing (CGR)’s Niels Koolen and HMD rookie Jack Beeton. The returning Yuven Sundaramoorthy was ninth for Cusick Morgan Motorsports, with Andretti’s Seb Murray completing the top 10.
An all-time great back-to-front run
In keeping with the tone of the weekend, more drama ensued before the race had even kicked off on Sunday. Another problem for Fittipaldi left HMD scrambling and, as engines were fired, his No.67 machine was moved off pit lane.
Mercifully, despite missing the initial roll-off and green flag, after swift rectification of the issue, the Brazilian rejoined the race from pit lane marginally before the field had passed by, meaning he was able to stay on the lead lap. Cape-ECR’s Matteo Nannini, starting 17th, did not have the same fortunes, also suffering a pre-race issue though falling seven laps down.
At the front of the field, the most notable early move at the head of the field saw Pierson jump de Tullio for second place. After an initially clean start, a crash for Juncos Hollinger Racing’s Alexander Koreiba in Turn 4, running high and finding the wall after being passed on the inside by Rowe, brought out a caution on Lap 5.
On the restart on Lap 12, de Tullio started to fade a little from the final podium spot, passed by title protagonists Taylor and Johnson and eventually falling to the lower end of the top 10. At the head of the field, Pierson began to put Hughes under duress and, within 15 laps, including multiple spent side-by-side, an outside move saw the lead change hands.
All the while, Rowe was quietly but very quickly making progress through the pack.
By Lap 20, he had already made it into the top 10 and was surging still, making a pass-per-lap to reach seventh by Lap 23. And that forward trajectory only continued, as before even reaching halfway, he had passed Taylor to climb into the podium positions.
Before long, Rowe was lurking behind and closing in on the lead fight as Hughes rallied back at Pierson. When traffic was hit on Lap 41, stuck in the roadblock as Pierson made better progress, Hughes found himself Rowe’s next victim with another high-side overtake.
Any gap that Pierson made in that phase was quickly eliminated, too, for Rowe quickly dropped Hughes and was in pursuit of the race lead. And indeed, three laps before the two-thirds mark, an inside pass into Turn 3 vaulted him to the point of the field.
Pierson fought back for the following two laps, forcing side-by-side exchanges both on the outside and then inside. But his attempts were to no avail and Rowe streaked clear.
On Lap 54, though, any breakaway was halted by a caution for debris, which Rowe had appeared to run over. But the restart was textbook from the new race leader, pulling away from Pierson as, one position back, Taylor found his way around Hughes for third.
Only three green-flag laps were completed before another caution on Lap 61 for a dramatic collision in the battle for eighth between Sundaramoorthy and HMD’s Salvador de Alba, who had run high, forcing the Cusick Morgan driver into the wall and into a wheelie. De Alba himself made heavy contact with the inside barrier but both drivers emerged unharmed.
Deemed at fault for the contact, de Alba has been handed a six-position starting grid penalty for the upcoming Race 1 at Road America.
Following this caution, Pierson’s restart was improved, allowing a brief look at Rowe before falling into the clutches of Taylor, who had appeared to pass his teammate before the race was neutralised. After a lap-long exchange of second place, Pierson managed to hold onto the position, though both ultimately fell to de Tullio after a resurgent end to the race.
As those behind fought hard and de Tullio secured second on the penultimate lap, Rowe completed the greatest recovery drive in the series’ 40-year history. The lowest position from which a driver had previously won was 18th place, achieved by Esteban Guerrieri in the 2012 Freedom 100. Rowe toppled that record by six positions.
Pierson held on to third place - his first podium for Andretti - after de Tullio’s late pass for second, with Koolen fourth, taking CGR’s best result since returning to the series last year. Taylor had to settle for fifth, with pole-sitter Hughes leading 26 laps but falling to sixth.
In seventh, Johnson headed a rookie trio completed by Abel’s Max Garcia and Kucharczyk, with Abel veteran Jordan Missig rounding out the top 10. While less spectacular than Rowe, Fittipaldi completed what could yet prove a pivotal recovery drive from the rear to 13th.
Alongside the crashed Koreiba, de Alba and Sundaramoorthy, CGR’s Bryce Aron was the only other retirement after reporting a shifting issue inside the opening five laps.
Acceptance, sketches & high-line trust
Even after the marked frustration of Saturday’s qualifying mix-up, Rowe never allowed himself to feel defeated. After processing the initial annoyance at the situation, for which he shouldered the blame, his attention quickly shifted to adapting his gameplan for Sunday.
“It was hard for me to accept, honestly,” he admitted. “The whole strategy was changed in an instant. It was hard to not run through different scenarios in your head, different ways you’d approach this start, different ways the second and third quarter, even the last quarter of the race, would go, whether I was going to be up front [or] struggling to get by some guys.
“I knew I could get [to the front] when I did. It was just a matter of oval racing is a complex situation. I knew if things opened up at a certain point, I would be in the lead at this point of the race, as long as I controlled what I did accordingly and stayed patient.”
When it became clear he would essentially have to pass the entirety of the field should he win the race, he tapped into something he had uncovered in practice, which had given him the belief to run above the regular racing line - essential to make overtakes.
“I like to call it not the high line but the ‘higher line’. It’s a way of approaching it that made things open up a lot more than I found in my previous experience with oval racing,” Rowe explained. “That was going through my head constantly, literally in circles. I knew if I committed to that and had the right determination and approach, everything would open up.
“I was even sketching some things this morning [before the race], thinking of alternate ways to approach it, especially in [Turns] 1 and 2. Managed to do that when we started [and] found that it worked extremely well. Just worked with that plan.”
Given he now has three victories in the last four oval races in Indy NXT, talk has naturally been stirred within the fanbase about an Indianapolis 500 drive in 2027 for Rowe. Sunday’s performance and its record-breaking nature is the type of drive that proves eye-opening to the wider paddock, of which Rowe is acutely aware.
“No doubt it’s a good feeling to make that achievement,” he said. “I think it’s clear that I have the skill to run in the IndyCar Series. Hopefully teams see this performance. No doubt, that’s why we’re here - that’s why we all are here. I plan to just keep doing what I’ve got to do.
“Right now, I’m focusing on this championship. That’s all that matters to me at the moment.”
After a tough start to 2026 - with only a single top-five result in the first six rounds - Rowe now has successive podiums, having finished runner-up in Detroit. The Abel programme still requires improvement on road and street courses but there is now a newfound belief.
“No doubt,” Rowe rallied, “the momentum is going to fuel us to keep up this performance.”
Damage limitation for Fittipaldi
On a weekend where his slender seven-point advantage atop the standings could have become decidedly more of a deficit given his mechanical problems, by finishing 13th, Fittipaldi has limited damage expertly to have only fallen to second and two points off the lead.
A gain of nine points on Fittipaldi has lifted Johnson back to the lead, though he could only capitalise with seventh place. Kucharczyk’s ninth-place finish leaves him third, though only five points behind Johnson after a quiet weekend for the championship’s leading trio.
Finishing fifth, Taylor has closed back within 27 points of the lead, with Gateway victor Rowe 73 points back and de Tullio (74 points behind) and Hughes (79 points adrift) also now within 80 points. The top seven have created some separation to those behind, with Cusick Morgan’s JM Correa 113 points off the top of the standings in eighth.
After a one-weekend break for the IndyCar circus, Indy NXT returns on June 20th and 21st for the third doubleheader weekend of the season at Road America.
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