Iowa Short Oval Brings Unique Challenges for Louis Foster In Doubleheader This Weekend in RLL Droplight Honda

Foster won INDY NXT Race at Iowa last year and now takes on NTT INDYCAR SERIES regulars

By: Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (Photo Courtesy RLLR)

NEWTON, Iowa (July 10, 2025) – Growing up in England, rookie racer Louis Foster didn’t have the words “Short Track Oval” in his motorsports vocabulary. He was concentrating on road racing.

Since his move to the United States, the personable 21-year-old driver from Odiham, Hampshire, England has had to learn as much as possible at a variety of “Short Track Ovals” like Iowa Speedway, Milwaukee Mile, World Wide Technology Raceway (St. Louis), Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway and Nashville Super Speedway. And Foster is a fast learner, winning events at all five of the above ovals in lower racing divisions.

Now, the driver of the No. 45 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Droplight Honda has moved to the highly competitive NTT INDYCAR SERIES in 2025, and this weekend’s (July 12-13) Iowa Speedway “doubleheader” races will be a mental and physical test at the fast 0.875-mile high-banked track.

Foster captured the Iowa 100 last year in the INDY NXT series, a feeder tour for NTT INDYCAR SERIES, on his way to the series championship. So, Louis knows the track, but it’s a big jump to the higher-horsepower turbocharged open-wheel machines.

Foster, who leads the “Rookie of the Year” points standings, tested his No. 45 RLL Droplight Honda last month at Iowa Speedway and knows the importance of two 275-mile feature races on Saturday at 4 p.m. CDT and Sunday at 12 p.m. CDT.

“It’s going to be a very important race weekend with two races in two days,” said Foster about the Iowa Speedway weekend. “So, it’s super important to turn up strong. We only get one practice session before qualifying as well. All of the drivers and teams are thrown in the deep end and have little time to make gains. I tested there in June, and we’ve spent a lot of time since then on the simulator to continue working on that.

“Once you are onsite, it’s harder to find gains in such a short period of time. Everyone on the RLL Droplight team is working super hard to make sure that we turn up at Iowa as strong as possible.”

Last month’s short track oval race at WWTR near St. Louis was a good learning experience for Foster, who can take that knowledge towards the Iowa races. He now hopes to translate the June event into strong performances at Iowa Speedway. 

“I think we can take some of the things we learned in St. Louis to Iowa,” explained Foster. “Iowa Speedway is definitely a very different type of oval from the one near St. Louis. But there are nuances we tend to have in our oval car that we are continuously working on.  Those can benefit from the overall knowledge we gain each time we are on track.” 

The Sukup INDYCAR race weekend begins on Friday at 2:30 p.m. CDT with a practice session. The two race lineups will be established in qualifying on Saturday at 11 a.m. CDT. The Synk 275 powered by Sukup begins at 4 p.m. CDT on Saturday and the Farm to Finish 275 powered by Sukup is set at 12 p.m. on Sunday. Both race events will air live on FOX, the FOX Sports app and the INDYCAR Radio Network.