EKN’s Paddock Insider is part of our Trackside coverage, bringing you notes, updates and breaking news as it happens. The article will feature notes from trackside at the 2024 United States Pro Kart Series at the Indiana Grand Prix held at the New Castle Motorsports Park in New Castle, Indiana.

Hurricane Helene Reaching Indiana

The northern edge of the weather system caused by Hurricane Helene that made landfall on the Florida panhandle last night has reached the state of Indiana. Rain and wind have greeted the over 200 entries here at the New Castle Motorsports Park, with a forecast of strong winds to reach the region this afternoon. With the forecast in hand, USPKS officials met with team owners/managers and the privateers on hand this weekend. Discussion was held with USPKS providing two options. The majority agreed with the two rounds of practice today and pushing qualifying to Saturday morning. This allows drivers to get wet weather session in before the worst of the weather rolls in, and practice could continue depending on the weather conditions. The schedule will change for Saturday, putting in qualifying after warm-up. They will now combine the KA100 Junior and KA100 Senior heat groups, so both classes will not follow the ABCD format. A revised schedule will be published on the USPKS Discord account.

Inter MS Moves to OTK

Alessandro de Tullio and the Inter MS team have moved to Tony Kart chassis (Photo: Studio52.us)

Coming to the series finale, there was no rumors or silly season scenarios coming into the weekend. When arriving on Thursday, the silver and pink colors of the Inter MS machines had different tubes to them. Both Alessandro de Tullio and Harley Keeble in the X30 Pro division, along with Lorenzo Kauffmann in KA100 Senior are competing on the Tony Kart chassis in place of the Kart Republic brand they have been utilizing all season. It’s the first weekend on the chassis for the team, as de Tullio and Keeble are fighting in the top five of the X30 Pro title chase. De Tullio told EKN it was a team decision to make the change over, with no specific reason for the move.

Two-Time Indy 500 Winner Newgarden Testing at USPKS

IndyCar champion Josef Newgarden was testing Thursday for the NCMP 200 (Photo: Studio52.us)

On Thursday during the unofficial practice session run by NCMP, two-time Indy 500 winner and former IndyCar champion Josef Newgarden was at the track behind the wheel of a kart. The Nashville, Tennessee driver visited the New Castle circuit for the day, getting his first laps in a kart since 2021 at the SKUSA SuperNationals. Newgarden was with USF Pro 2000 driver Logan Adams, each taking the kart out on the day, preparing for the upcoming NCMP 200 that is scheduled for October 4-6 here at New Castle. The 200-lap endurance race is a revival of the RoboPong 200 event that ran here until 2015, featuring stars from the sport of karting along with IndyCar, NASCAR, IMSA and other forms of motorsports. This year’s event will feature a few big names alongside Newgarden, with the hopes of making it an annual event that all in motorsports can enjoy and participate in.

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