Max Garcia stormed to his first-ever Indy NXT win at The Milwaukee Mile.
Starting ninth in the #12 Abel Motorsports entry, the 17-year-old Miami native charged through the field and took the race lead after pole-sitter Josh Pierson crashed from the top spot. Despite fending off multiple late restarts, Garcia held on to lead the final 37 of 90 laps en route to winning by 0.9430s.
“Unbelievable,” Garcia said. “It’s been such a tough year for all of us at Abel. We knew we had a good oval package. We knew that we set the car up more for the race, and we knew in practice we could move through cars. So, it was just all about timing it right and then getting through everyone.”
JM Correa (Cusick Morgan Motorsports) finished second, with Jack Beeton (HMD Motorsports) taking the final podium spot in third.
Max Taylor (Andretti Global) ended up fourth, with Nikita Johnson (Cape Motorsports Powered by ECR) surging to fifth at the checkered flag after starting 15th.
With Johnson’s top five, the championship picture shifted once more. He came into the weekend trailing Enzo Fittipaldi by one point, but leaves with a three-point advantage with two races remaining. Fittipaldi finished seventh in the race. Tymek Kucharczyk, who entered the weekend third in the overall standings at 18 points behind, remained in third but now sits 29 points back after fading to a 12th-place finish in the race.
The moment belongs to Max Garcia! 🏁 pic.twitter.com/0FUn7TcCrP
— INDY NXT by Firestone (@INDYNXT) August 30, 2026
The Race
Pierson led the field to the green flag, with Kucharczyk (HMD Motorsports) starting alongside and filing in behind through Turn 1.
Beeton moved up to second on Lap 3 with an inside pass on Kucharczyk. The driver attempting to make moves was Johnson (Cape Motorsports Powered by ECR), who started 15th and battled with Myles Rowe (Abel Motorsports) for several laps before taking over 13th on Lap 10.
By Lap 15, Pierson held a 1.8393s lead over Beeton, with Kucharczyk holding third at 2.2s back and under threat from Taylor, who started ninth. Pierson’s gap widened to 2.6212s over Beeton by Lap 25. The top five through the opening 25 laps remained Pierson, Beeton, Kucharczyk, Taylor, and Garcia.
Garcia began to surge moments later, though, getting by Taylor and Kucharczyk to move into third by Lap 30. Garcia moved by Beeton with an inside pass into Turn 1 on Lap 35 to take over second.
Despite Pierson holding a 3.0472s lead over Garcia on Lap 35, the gap dramatically fell to 1.2100s just five laps later. At the halfway point, Pierson continued to lead, with Garcia 0.6569s behind as the pair began navigating heavier backmarker traffic.
Garcia got within a few car lengths of Pierson on Lap 52, but it ended in tears for the latter moments later. Coming off Turn 2 on Lap 54, Pierson broke loose and spun around, with the right-side of his #29 Andretti Global machine slammed the inside wall, bringing out the caution.
Watch the replays of Josh Pierson's incident on Lap 54 👇 pic.twitter.com/kkrj4bvLTV
— INDY NXT by Firestone (@INDYNXT) August 30, 2026
Garcia inherited the race lead as a result of Pierson’s crash, with Beeton moving up to second. Correa in third, Kucharczyk in fourth, and Taylor running fifth.
The restart came on Lap 64, with Garcia propelling away with the lapped teammate of Colin Kaminsky between him and Beeton. Kucharczyk’s spot came under threat by Lochie Hughes (Andretti Autosport), with the former holding the latter off. However, Hughes spun from sixth moments later at the exit of Turn 2 and brought out the race’s second caution. Hughes was able to continue on.
Garcia led the field to the restart on Lap 73, with Beeton in second. The critical fight happened with fifth, as Kucharczyk dropped down to eighth as title rivals Fittipaldi (HMD Motorsports) and Johnson, who quietly moved through the top 10, moved up and battled side-by-side before the latter took over fifth.
The caution returned for a third time shortly after as Salvador De Alba (HMD Motorsports) spun in Turn 4, with Rowe making contact with his nosecone that led to an early retirement.
Following a brief caution, Garcia led the field once more to the green flag on Lap 82. Beeton attempted an inside dive for the lead, but Garcia held firm. The push to get the lead for Beeton resulted in losing significant momentum, which allowed Correa to get by for second.
The caution came out again as Kaminsky spun off Turn 2 after the restart. The timing of the caution happened before Beeton lost the position to Correa, so he returned to second.
Garcia built a slight gap and went earlier on the restart on Lap 86, with Correa taking over second with an outside pass on Beeton. Beeton tried to return the favor to Correa, but was unsuccessful. In the end, Garcia coasted to his maiden Indy NXT win.
