Oilpressure

When Scott Dixon took out Will Power in a Saturday morning practice session at Road America this past June, many said that we were witnessing the beginning of the end of Scott Dixon’s driving career. They quickly assumed that since Dixon had been relatively unspectacular in the first half of the season, that Father Time had finally caught up with Dixon. The naysayers said that his skills had eroded and he might retire at the end of the season.

Where are those people now? For the second race in a row, Scott Dixon put a smack-down on the rest of the field. Just as he did at the Gallagher Grand Prix on the IMS road course two weeks ago; Dixon used a combination of driving skill and race craft as well as savvy strategy from Mike Hull and the PNC Bank pit stand. (All photos by Susan Phillips)

Second-place finisher Pato O’Ward summed it up best in his post race interview. He was dejected to once again finish second this season, but simply shrugged and said “Scott Dixon”. In the post-race press conference, he elaborated in saying “Scott Dixon decided to do a Scott Dixon today”.

Third-place finisher David Malukas seemed just as resigned, saying it was impossible for anyone to try and imitate what Scott Dixon does. He’s not too shabby for a forty-three year-old driver that many we willing to write off just a could of months ago. He now has fifty-five IndyCar wins on his resume, and counting.

Josef Newgarden led from the start of the race, that featured Benjamin Pedersen backing into the Turn One wall on the opening lap. He led through the entire first stint until he pitted on Lap 62. Once the stops cycled through, Newgarden found himself in the lead again.

When Takuma Sato hit the Turn Two wall on Lap 122, everything changed. Dixon and Newgarden both pitted on Lap 127, but Dixon went sixty-nine laps on his next stint, while Newgarden went only thirty-nine. On Lap 208, Newgarden brushed the wall while trying to catch up with Dixon. He later said he knew he would lose if he got into a fuel saving contest with Scott Dixon. Most drivers do.

Newgarden ultimately finished twenty-fifth, and finds himself trailing Alex Palou in the championship by 125 points with two races to go. I’m not the best at math, but I believe that means Newgarden is now officially eliminated from championship contention. Scott Dixon, on the other hand, now trails Palou by only seventy-four points. That’s still a hefty lead for Palou, but if I was him – I would start feeling just a little nervous. Scott Dixon knows how to erase large deficits.

One thing is now certain – the 2023 NTT IndyCar Series Champion will come from Chip Ganassi Racing.

As for the race itself; I’ve seen better, but I’ve seen worse. I’ll have to go back and watch the replay, but I’m not sure that the alternate tires did a whole lot to spice up the race. In the post-race press conference, he thought that bringing alternate tires to the oval at Gateway was a good idea. He just thought that Firestone could get more aggressive with it next year.

Weather-wise, although the forecasts for the weekend were not very accurate – the weather for the race was perfect. The overcast skies at the start kept things cool, but about halfway though – the sun came out and it warmed up. Still, I’m not sure the temperature got out of the high-seventies – a far cry from the temps on Friday.

That will do it for us from World Wide Technology Raceway. It is almost 6:00 pm and we have a 4.5 hour drive ahead of us. Susan is going to drive, while I type out tomorrow’s Random Thoughts for Monday. Thanks for following along all weekend and throughout all of the races we have attended in-person this season. We will not attend the remaining two west-coast races, but will continue to give my perspective to those races and everything pertaining to IndyCar for the foreseeable future. Please check back Monday.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on August 27, 2023 at 6:08 pm and is filed under IndyCar. 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.