After an excellent doubleheader event at Road America last week, Dale Coyne Racing with Team Goh rookie Alex Palou is heading into unknown territory this weekend at Iowa Speedway for what will be his short track debut.

Palou is coming off third and seventh place finishes at the Elkhart Lake road course, where he also scored his best starting position of the season with a third place on the starting grid.

The rookie is carrying momentum to the 0.875-mile oval in Newton, Iowa, and while he is hopeful that he can have another strong doubleheader weekend, he’s well aware that there’s a lot of learning to be done.

“It’s going to be my first experience on a short oval, which means another completely new experience for me. I now have to switch my mind back to oval racing, it’s not a road course anymore, it’s not my specialty so it will be a lot of learning once again as a rookie. Everyone has told me that Iowa is going to be crazy, that it’s a difficult race with the bumps. We have two races again this weekend, so it will be demanding but it will also be good to help me gain as much experience as possible on that type of track,” expressed Palou.

The driver of the #55 Dale Coyne Racing with Team Goh Honda only has one oval start on his resume with a best starting position of 16th and finish of 23rd at Texas Motor Speedway. He and his fellow rookies will get an additional 30 minutes of practice time on Friday, July 17 starting at 1:00pm local time.

All drivers will then get one hour of practice (1:30pm – 2:30pm local) with qualifying for both races taking place from 4:30pm to 5:30pm.

Each driver will get two qualifying laps. Lap 1 will determine their starting position for Race 1 and Lap 2 their starting position for Race 2.

Race 1 of the Iowa IndyCar 250s will go green on Friday, July 17 at 8:15pm local time (9:15pm ET) and will be broadcast live on NBCSN from 8:30pm ET.

Race 2 will also be broadcast live on NBCSN from 8:30pm ET on Saturday, July 18. Drivers will also get an additional one-hour practice session on Saturday from 2:30pm.

Qualifying and practice will be streamed live on the NBC Sports Gold app.