Insider: Newgarden grateful for help along the way, turns focus to 500

Josef Newgarden smelled of champagne Sunday afternoon, which was playfully perfect. He doesn't drink, or at least he hadn't until reaching victory lane at Barber Motorsports Park.

That's when he sipped from the bottle.

"One sip," he said flatly. "Peer pressure from (fellow podium finishers) Scott (Dixon) and Graham (Rahal)."

Newgarden, 24, then clarified his take on the moment. He drank because he wanted to; the taste of victory was too much to not consume the full experience.

Oh, Newgarden emptied the bottle. In the celebration, spray went in all directions, as it should in such glee. He couldn't have been happier. It was such a day in the making.

Newgarden was a baseball player growing up in the Nashville suburb of Hendersonville, Tenn., because his parents were too afraid to let him race. His father, Joey, had raced a stock car until he ran out of money for the effort. When the blonde-haired Josef came along, he was too precious to turn loose on anything more than a gas-powered scooter he practically rode into the ground.

Life changed at age 13. At Josef's urging, Joey researched what he considered the safest, most affordable place to try go-kart racing, and the decision was New Castle (Ind.) Motorsports Park. Enter Mark Dismore, a former IndyCar driver, and his family.

The Dismores didn't just welcome the Newgardens, they embraced them, fed them, housed them, counseled them. Dismore wasn't in victory lane Sunday, but in a way he was, just as the leaders of one of Europe's top teams (Carlin) were for their GP3 time with Newgarden and Sam Schmidt was for investing in a championship Indy Lights season in 2011.

So many people to thank, Newgarden said as memories and his emotions flowed.

"The Best Western," he said of the I-70 hotel where he and his father stayed so many nights as they trekked 20 times a year in a truck to Dismore's track. "Lots of nights at the Dismores' house."

There were other nights bunking at Conor Daly's place in Zionsville. That was years ago, but it was seemingly yesterday when the explanation of the road to Indy comes front and center.

"I'm happy for the kid, but I'm really happy for the dad," said Dismore of the man who created Robopong, a mechanism that feeds table tennis balls back to players. "Joey and Tina really put everything they had into Josef's career.

"But Josef really wanted to learn, and they were totally into (racing). I always thought it was funny that a kid from Tennessee wanted to be an open-wheel driver. Seems wrong, doesn't it?"

Newgarden got his IndyCar chance in 2012 when former driver Sarah Fisher and Kansas oilman Wink Hartman called. They ran 51 races together over three seasons, with near-victories at Mid-Ohio (two years ago) and Iowa (last year) among them, both second-place finishes.

But when the contract expired last fall, Newgarden gave considerable pause to returning. Ultimately, he decided that the partnership with Ed Carpenter Racing would be beneficial to his career, so he re-signed.

"Huge decision," he said.

Now they've won a race and Carpenter's best track, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval, is coming quickly. With Chevrolet's engine and bodywork kit along with the team's togetherness and IMS experience, Newgarden believes he can win the Indianapolis 500.

A kid can dream, right?

"I think we'll have a great shot," he said.

Believing is everything, and besides, winners get milk there. Newgarden drinks milk.

Follow Star reporter Curt Cavin on Twitter at @curtcavin.

Up next:

May 9: Angie's List Grand Prix of Indianapolis

May 24: Indianapolis 500