Indy 500 Hopeful Kyle Kirkwood 'Striving for Greatness' after First IndyCar Win

• The past year has been a whirlwind for second-year NTT IndyCar Series driver Kyle Kirkwood.

• Kirkwood put himself on the NTT IndyCar Series map in a big way with his first career win at Long Beach on April 16.

• In 2023, Kirkwood is flipping the script, and he comes into the Indianapolis 500 sitting 10th in the season standings and with a car he feels can run with the leaders.

Kyle Kirkwood likes to talk about attending his first IndyCar race when he was just nine years ago.

Some guy named Scott Dixon won it.

Now, some 15 years later, the 24-year-old Kirkwood will be lining up his No. 27 AutoNation Honda for Andretti Autosport on the outside of Row 5—three rows behind Dixon—for the 107th Indianapolis 500 on May 28.

The past year has been a whirlwind for Kirkwood, for sure. This past offseason he moved from A.J. Foyt Racing to Andretti Autosport, where he replaced Andretti veteran Alexander Rossi. Then, Kirkwood wasted little time and put himself on the NTT IndyCar Series map in a big way with his first career win at Long Beach on April 16 in just his third race with his new team.

That win, coupled with the might of the Andretti organization behind him, has the Jupiter, Florida, native feeling good going into this year's 500. Kirkwood will be making his second Indy 500 start after finishing a solid 17th and on the lead lap at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway a year ago.

"A lot of people will tell you you're you're only as good as your last race, and the last race (on the Indy Road Course on May 13) we finished 14th," Kirkwood told Autoweek. "So right now we're still striving for greatness, even though we've gotten that win. We have to continue to do it because if we don't, there's other guys that will.

"It's still full focus, full steam ahead. But it is a cool thing to be able to be part of not a massive group of drivers who are able to say, 'Hey, I won an IndyCar race.' It's something I'm going to cherish, and I know I'll be able to cherish that for the rest of my life."