MOORESVILLE, N.C. — When Team Penske’s Will Power won his first NTT IndyCar Series Championship in 2014, he was a man obsessed with winning a championship.
Prior to that, Power had established himself as a big winner and was known as the “King of the Road” by dominating street and road course races in the series.
But the one thing he couldn’t claim was a series championship.
Power came close, but often left the last race of the season bitterly disappointed. That all ended at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Cali., when he won his first IndyCar Series championship in 2014.
He went on to win the Indianapolis 500 in 2018, and during this year’s final weekend of the season at WeatherTech Raceway at Laguna Seca, he broke Mario Andretti’s record for most poles with his 68th. Along the way, Power has won 41 IndyCar Series races.
Still, he was driven to win another championship.
During the offseason, Power’s wife, Liz, told him it was going to happen.
“She said that,” Power said. “She actually said she believed that was going to happen. There was probably a time where I was disappointed in something or talking about my career or something. She goes, ‘I believe you’re going to beat Mario Andretti’s record (for most poles) this year and win another championship.’ That’s what she said.
“Legit, she said that. She said that a couple times in the year, and it actually gave me confidence,” Power related. “That’s how much faith I have in her gut feel. It kind of made me feel, OK, yeah, she’s said things like this before. Like the Indy 500 in 2018, she said, ‘I believe you’re going to win one. I think you’re going to win one.’”
Power recalls that Liz told him that in the kitchen beginning in January of this year.
Liz Power’s premonition paid off as Power claimed his second NTT IndyCar Series championship with a third-place finish in the Sept.11 Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey. He claimed the title by 16 points over his Team Penske teammate Josef Newgarden.
Unlike the “wild man” that Power was leading up to the 2014 championship, this was a much calmer, more mature 41-year-old Power who methodically entered the season seeking consistency. His teammates had more victories as Newgarden had five and Scott McLaughlin three, but Power had nine podium finishes in 17 races.
Power called that, “Playing the long game.”
He had exercised that new philosophy throughout the season.
“I’ve said it from the beginning of the year,” Power claimed. “I said, ‘I’m playing the long game all year. I’ve never done that, and I’m doing it this year. I don’t really care about the wins; I just want to win another championship,’ and I played that game.
“Maybe I go out next year and try to win races. If you want to win a championship, you’ve got to play a long game.”
The old Will Power would have taken a second-place car and tried to win the race, risking crashing out. The more mature Power takes a third-place car and settles for third, rather than win or crash.
“Looking from a championship perspective, every time you get a podium, that’s not the day you’re looking back on it,” he explained. “You’re looking back on the day you finished 19th like at Road America. They’re the days that lose championships. Top threes don’t. We got a lot of them this year. Anytime I got a top four, I was pretty happy.
“But in the past, I would have been really pissed off. When your teammates are winning, that was a big change. It’s like, ‘I don’t care. I’m going to weather their storm while they’re having a good run.’ That in itself was a mental change. I’m not getting pissed off with a top four, where before I would have been, just after the race, just seething.”
The ability to play “the long game,” and taking a mature outlook at life paid off with Power’s second championship.
But it was also his wife’s premonition and faith that gave Power the inner peace to drive to the title.