Two-time IndyCar champion Josef Newgarden won angry on Saturday at the opening Hy-Vee IndyCar Weekend race at Iowa Speedway. Although his car was faster than any other, and victory was rarely in doubt, the Team Penske driver couldn’t help but curse on national television after climbing from the car and go onto express his frustration with how drivers in slower cars made his job unnecessarily hard.

By the end of the 250-lap race on the 0.875-mile oval set among Iowa’s corn fields, Newgarden had led 129 of those tours and lapped all but four of his 27 rivals. Before he was done speaking for the day, the two-time IndyCar champion would forewarn and threaten those who might find themselves in his position during today’s race or at future rounds.

“It's one thing if you're leading the race,” he said. “If you're leading the race, you're really within your right. If you're fighting with people around you, seventh, eighth, ninth place, you're all fighting. You're within your right to fight as hard as possible.

“I think, the way the rule was written, it's also legal for them to fight to the death to stay on the lead lap in front of the leader. It is legal. I'm just telling you you're not making any friends when you do it. There's 20 laps to go in the race, and I was getting driven like it was literally to the death for the end of the Indy 500. It was just crazy. I couldn't believe the way people were ‘mirror driving.’

“I've never seen it that bad here. Normally if you're the leader, you're not getting a handout, but you're at least getting the courtesy that you are the leader and you're about to get lapped. You don't have to pull over, but just don't be aggressive and weave in front of the leader, block the leader, chop the leader.”

Newgarden, the genial Tennessean, took the conversation in a dark direction and closed with a NASCAR-style warning that’s rarely seen in the danger-filled world of open-wheel racing.

“Like there's just a point where you've got to understand that that comes back around,” he continued. “If you do that to someone, I'm going to fence you the next time I see you. If you're the leader the next time, I am going to do you so dirty if you did that to me.

“It's common sense. Everybody in the paddock knows it, and they're just -- for whatever reason, there's just people who just can't get it. You know what, if they can't learn it by now, they'll probably never learn. I guess where I'm going with this, you can tell I'm frustrated by it, which a lot of people are. I can't change people's behavior. If they're going to continue to do that, I have to study and figure out how to counteract it because that's how they're going to play.”