Scott McLaughlin’s American Dream began in Iowa.

McLaughlin, a New Zealand native who was raised in Australia, had lived in the U.S. for years as a permanent resident and married an American from New York. But after his first oval win came at Iowa Speedway in July 2024, McLaughlin sold his home in Australia and decided to take the United States Citizenship Test.

In April he became an American citizen.

“That’s when it all stared,” McLaughlin said.

He told himself that with his first oval win, and the fifth IndyCar win in four seasons he would “be here for a while.” His wife was pregnant and he realized he wanted to make America his permanent home. “So maybe we should make this official and become a citizen. From that point on I started piecing things together.”

‘That was a real accomplishment’

Ryan Blaney, McLaughlin’s close friend and Team Penske teammate, won the first NASCAR Cup Series race at Iowa Speedway in June 2024. Blaney’s mother is from Chariton and he spent much of his childhood in Iowa. When McLaughlin won in Iowa a month later, Blaney texted his friend, “We’re corn brothers now.”

The win marked a high in McLaughlin’s career. Team Penske hired McLaughlin in 2017 to drive for its Australian Supercars team. In his nine years in the Australian Supercars Series McLaughlin won 56 races and 76 poles. Penske Corp. president Bud Denker said that after that first oval win McLaughlin “arrived.”

“That was a real accomplishment for him,” Denker said. “Because he’s run road courses and street courses all of his career in Australia and New Zealand. But now winning on ovals, something he’s never been accustomed to, was a real point of him arriving.”

McLaughlin came close to wins on ovals before. At Texas Motor Speedway in 2022 McLaughlin led his teammate Josef Newgarden as they entered turn 4 on the final lap. But Newgarden edged McLaughlin by a nose at the finish line. Newgarden officially won by 0.0669 seconds. In 2024 McLaughlin won the pole for the Indianapolis 500.

“It was huge obviously,” McLaughlin said. “It’s the Mecca of our sport.”

But McLaughlin has also had lows. The 2025 season has been one of the toughest for Team Penske in recent memory. For the second straight season Team Penske was engulfed in a rules scandal. In 2024 Newgarden and McLaughlin were disqualified from the St. Petersburg Grand Prix after had cars that contained an illegal line of code in the car’s software that gave them access to push-to-pass — a 50-horsepower boost that can be used to pass opponents during certain situations on road and street courses — at any time. Newgarden and McLaughlin “gained a competitive advantage by using push-to-pass on restarts,” in violation of the rules, IndyCar said in a 2024 news release.

At this year’s Indy 500 Newgarden and their teammate Will Power failed technical inspections before the second round of qualifying for the Indianapolis 500 when IndyCar officials found unapproved adjustments to the rear attenuator of both cars. McLaughlin crashed on the pace lap when he spun while warming up his tires on the front stretch.

“That was tough,” McLaughlin said in Iowa. “You put so much into that race … For it to end even before it started was super difficult. That was definitely one of the hardest moments of my career because I’m so infatuated with that race.”

Should all of Iowa Speedway be repaved?

Iowa Speedway president Eric Peterson said in April that the track was partially repaved because without it, potholes could have formed.

“We did it from purely a safety perspective because there would have been pieces (of the track) flying all over the place if we hadn’t done that,” Peterson said.

After last year’s second race McLaughlin said that it was unfair to blame the track’s owner for repaving the track because eventually it would need to be repaved.

“I just wish he repaved the whole track,” McLaughlin said. “We knew eventually it was going to get repaved … We wanted collectively for the whole track to be repaved because it was really good for our racing to at least have that consistency.”

What does McLaughlin like about Big Ten football and Iowa Speedway?

Today McLaughlin lives in Charlotte, North Carolina. McLaughlin is now a full-fledged American. In Australia he grew up with a deep love of basketball and the New York Knicks. But now he’s a Carolina Panthers fan, New York Mets fan and New York Rangers fan. McLaughlin became a big fan of Wisconsin Badgers football because his spotter is a Wisconsin native. McLaughlin can talk Big Ten football with the most skilled football analysts.

“I didn’t want to jump on the usual (Ohio State) or Georgia or anyone like that,” McLaughlin said. “It was a toss-up between them and Notre Dame. I like their ‘Jump Around’ thing.”

McLaughlin is excited to be back in Iowa for the July 12-13 races. Because Iowa Speedway is short at only 7/8 of a mile, and because IndyCar has raced two events there per season, it’s helped him get more oval experience, he said. McLaughlin likes the short laps at the track and that it has several racing grooves.

“It’s probably the slowest speed on an oval we get up to throughout the season,” McLaughlin said. “But it’s just round-and-round … We’re able to run high line, low line. It makes the cars quite fun to drive.”

As drivers and fans enter the infield at Iowa Speedway a sign reading “The Infield of Dreams” greets them, a play on the movie “Field of Dreams” that inspires people to achieve the impossible in Iowa. Every time McLaughlin passes the sign it sticks with him, he said. He’s thankful for everything the track did for his career.

“It helped me achieve a dream of mine to win on an oval,” McLaughlin said.

Philip Joens covers retail, real estate and motorsports for the Des Moines Register. He can be reached at 515-284-8184 or pjoens@registermedia.com.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: IndyCar’s Scott McLaughlin sought American citizenship after Iowa win