NEWTON – The Iowa Speedway has been Rusty Wallace’s baby from the start.

The former NASCAR champion designed the site of the inaugural Iowa Corn Indy 250, laying it out like the short ovals he dominated in his days on the circuit, and has a 10 percent ownership stake in the track, which opened last fall.

Speedway officials have made Wallace the face of Iowa’s first major auto racing facility. Pictures of Wallace adorn the headquarters, and the main road entering the speedway is called “Rusty Wallace Drive.”

The track, cut out of a swath of cornfields 35 miles east of Des Moines, was built to be quicker than the average short oval, with variable banking and tons of grip. Wallace wouldn’t have it any other way.

“The drivers really thought they were coming to a short race track, and have been pleasantly surprised that it’s driving like a superspeedway. They’re running over 180 mph, wide open every single lap,” Wallace said. “It’s like the field of dreams, man. They’ve all come here, they’re pumped up, they’re excited. The atmosphere is electric in the place.”

Start me up

Drivers realized during testing that the Iowa Speedway would yield little room for passing. Thus, the battle for positioning following restarts was intense.

“It was pretty desperate driving, I think, on restarts because you didn’t want to pick up a spot, and at the same time you wanted to take a spot and you didn’t want to give up the bottom,” said Scott Sharp, who finished third.

Luck runs dry

Ed Carpenter survived the day’s biggest crash, a four-car pileup on the 99th lap, only to run out of fuel on the 246th lap. He finished sixth, tied for his best of the season.

“We had enough fuel to go the distance, but the engine just cut out, so either we were wrong with how much fuel we had in the car, or the fuel pump drive broke or something like that,” Carpenter said.

Tough break for Hornish

Sam Hornish Jr. had a tough day, as he got caught up in the same wreck that only Carpenter survived unscathed. Hornish was considered one of the pre-race favorites, given his success on short ovals such as Richmond.

“I was just lagging back a bit but caught up in the mess in front of me. It’s really frustrating when something like this happens, but we’ll try to put it behind us and hope to make it two wins in a row at Richmond.

Spark plugs

Eight drivers held the lead at some point during the race. Buddy Rice moved up to 12th in the points standings after finishing in the top 10 for the second straight week. Rice wound up fourth, his best effort of the season. Fellow Dreyer & Reinbold Racing driver Sarah Fisher finished seventh, also her best effort of the year. The crowd was estimated at over 35,000.