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UNSTOPPABLE: Scott Dixon caps great month, wins 92nd Indy 500

Polesitter holds off hard-charging Meira in closing laps

More often than not, the man with the fastest car doesn’t win the Indianapolis 500. But this year, Scott Dixon simply wouldn’t be denied.

The New Zealander and driver of the No. 9 Target Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara was at the front of the pack all month long, from practice to Pole Day. Today, he put an exclamation point on his stellar May by winning the 92nd Running of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing by 1.7 seconds over Vitor Meira.

Dixon led 115 of 200 laps in the race, but lost the lead on a restart with about 40 laps to go as Meira blew by both then-leader Ed Carpenter and Dixon to take the point coming out of Turn 1. When Milka Duno spun out to bring the yellow out again, the leaders went into the pits. It was there on Lap 171 that Dixon re-took the lead for good with a seven-second stop that helped him beat Meira out of pit road.

Meira cut into Dixon’s lead during the final 25 laps, but when they and third-place driver Marco Andretti started hitting lapped traffic with only a handful of laps remaining, the Kiwi was able to get through the slower cars quicker and seal a victory that was anything but easy:

“With about four or five laps to go, the traffic was definitely going through my mind. We started to catch at least four or five cars, and I didn’t want it to play out that way, get stuck behind one of them. Because as soon as you lose momentum around here, those guys, you know, breathing down your neck are going to blow by you with a couple laps to go.

“I think for me was just, you know, I started going stiffer on the rear bar, putting the weight all the way to the left to try and make the car as fast as possible for those last few laps. But I think for me, it was just always concentrating on the corner and trying to make a perfect lap every lap.”

When the checkered flag flew over him as he sped across the Yard of Bricks, the normally reserved Dixon started to happily lose control while his TCGR squad on pit road did the same. The 2003 IndyCar Series champion said his trip to Indianapolis’ hallowed Victory Lane was “almost like [I was] in a dreamland.”

Team owner Chip Ganassi praised his man Dixon for a job well done, as well as the calm, cool demeanor that he exuded while he went about his business at the Speedway:

“He’s been like that, you know, forever since I’ve known him. I think…at first, I didn’t think he was that excited about racing when you first meet him because he — he had won so early in IndyCars in his career. You know, that quietness, people confuse that with caring about things.

“You know, it’s a relief to know that really wasn’t what it is; it was a quiet confidence that sort of is his trademark. That’s a powerful tool.”

In addition to earning him $2.9 million and the immortal title of Indy champion, Dixon’s victory erased bitter memories of last season’s IndyCar championship finale at Chicagoland Speedway, where he ran out of fuel on the final turn of the final lap to lose the title to Dario Franchitti.

Since then, Dixon had been strong throughout the early portions of this season with a victory at Homestead-Miami Speedway; if not for better luck, he could have won at Motegi and at Kansas as well.

However, he believes that his recent run of good racing goes beyond what occurred last September on the 1.5-mile oval in Joliet, Illinois:

“We had the dominance of winning three races in a row and going for four and trying to chase down Dario for the championship. I think that’s when it started, you know. We had a great, you know, everything that everybody was doing was just falling into, you know, the right place.

“Everybody was working well together, and we’ve carried on that confidence level and the success we had at the end of last year even we didn’t come away with the championship. But yes, I think that combination, with more determination after what happened, has been what’s helped us this season, I think. So it’s a combination of a lot of things.”

Also battling through problems stemming from last year was Meira, who scored the second Indy runner-up finish of his career. While it stretched his winless streak to 0-for-81 career races, the Brazilian driver of the one-car Panther Racing outfit showed enough moxie to nearly pull off one of the biggest Brickyard upsets in a long time.

Starting in eighth — the highest position of any driver not with TCGR, Andretti Green Racing, or Team Penske — Meira gradually crept toward the front of the field throughout the race.

His restart move of going to the outside of Dixon to take the lead from him and Carpenter at the end of the front stretch was a beauty and it certainly got the attention of those who had figured that the race was safe in the Kiwi’s hands.

Meira hailed his result as proof that Panther was back after a dismal 2007 and a even worse beginning to the 2008 campaign:

“How many, even in the grandstands here, how many of you guys counted me as leading Lap 160 or whatever? Not many. We did and we believed it and we’re always going to. We always, no matter what, [are] going to do our best.

“When I got out of the car, I saw that everybody on the team was very happy. National Guard people was happy, Delphi people was happy, I was very happy. And the reason is we took everything out [that] we had. Looking at the beginning of this year and the end of last year, this is a very, very good result. I will never take it for granted.”

Andretti also looked on the bright side after finishing third on a day where he played a major role in the outcome — even though it’s one he probably could do without.

On Lap 106, his teammate Tony Kanaan was leading the race when he was passed by Dixon on the backstretch. Andretti then picked up a big run on the inside of Kanaan, who was forced to go high. He spun his No. 11 car out in Turn 3 while trying not to hit the wall, but wound up getting nailed by the oncoming car of Sarah Fisher.

Kanaan said it was a stupid move. As for Andretti, he admitted that his move was “last minute,” but that was as far as he’d go:

“You know, maybe he didn’t expect it to be coming, I’ll put it that way. But, you know, we didn’t touch, I didn’t really take his air away, it was just a last-minute thing. You know, he was going in at speed and not able, he must have just got in the marbles. I didn’t see a replay yet, but I was as low as I possibly could have been.”

AGR co-owner Michael Andretti tried to stay neutral on the matter, but Kanaan couldn’t, saying:

“I think teammates shouldn’t do that to teammates. I’m sure he will have a good explanation for what he did. Halfway through the race with a bunch of traffic, why are you going to dive into me like that?”

However, as much ignominy as Kanaan’s exit carried, the chaotic conclusion of Danica Patrick’s shot to win the 500 will probably be the most talked about topic amongst fans tomorrow.

After complaining throughout the race about a lack of speed in her No. 7 Motorola machine, Patrick saw her race end when she hit Ryan Briscoe’s machine on the final round of pit stops as he peeled out of his stall. With her car crippled beyond repair, the IndyCar star hopped out and marched toward Briscoe’s Team Penske crew.

Security crews were able to keep her away from her destination, but it didn’t dull the sting of what had been a tough day for her on the track. After the race, she went through the incident:

“I was going down pit lane, and as people pull out of their pit boxes if you are in the outside lane, then they have to wait to blend in. From what I know, it looked like it was pretty obvious what happened. What are you going to do? The guys worked so hard today. We worked so hard on the car all month. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to show for it in the end.”

Briscoe took no responsibility, saying that replays of the accident show that Patrick had enough room to get by his No. 6 Team Penske Dallara:

“We were both out there trying to win the Indy 500 today, and when it’s time to go, we have to go. But from what I can see, there was still plenty of room on the right side for her to get around and there are people pointing fingers, but that’s not the way we are.

“We both have a brake pedal in our cars, and from what I can tell, there was still plenty of room for her to get around me. I was trying to get around Wheldon, and I was staying in the middle lane. I got ran up in the back, and it’s a shame.”

It was a somewhat ragged day today at the Speedway, as more than a few moments like these marked the race. 69 of 200 laps were ran under the caution flag.

But one man is currently above all the chaos and mayhem that ensued, standing atop the racing world as the winner of its greatest race and as a new hero for his homeland.

Scott Dixon has joined the immortals as an Indianapolis 500 champion. Eventually, it will sink in. But right now, he’s blissfully living in the moment:

“It’s something that you sort of expect somebody to maybe pinch you, and you wake up and you’re sleeping in your bed back home. It still hasn’t sunk in yet, and it feels so special.”

The IndyCar Series now moves to the Milwaukee Mile for next Sunday’s ABC Supply/A.J. Foyt Indy 225. The green flag is set to drop a little after 4 p.m. ET.

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All quotes used in this article were taken from today’s press conference transcripts and trackside report.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 25th, 2008 at 10:40 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.