Dixon sips the milk at Indy
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Cool, calm, confident and fast, Scott Dixon finished a dominant month at Indianapolis on Sunday by winning his first Indianapolis 500.
The Target Chip Ganassi driver started from the pole, topped the practice charts nearly every day, led 115 of the 200 laps and avoided the trouble which found many other front-runners to win the 92nd running of this race.
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“I was worried going into the race just because we had had such a smooth month,” Dixon said. “It was one of those things where you’re sort of waiting for something to go wrong. At no point did I think we had this in the bag.”
The things Dixon — and teammate Dan Wheldon — had in the bag were cars superior to any others in the field.
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“Speed was the denominator that we had this year with both Scott and Dan,” said Mike Hull, team managing director for Target Chip Ganassi Racing. “When you have speed as your ally, then it makes what we did today enormously easier.”
Wheldon also ran up front early, but his car began having mechanical problems and he faded to 12th by the finish.
“My issue all day was the right rear steer in the car,” he said. “It was OK in the first few stints but it seemed to get worse and worse as the day went on.”
The Indy win was the third for car owner Ganassi. He won with Emerson Fittipaldi in partnership with Pat Patrick in 1989 and with Juan Pablo Montoya in 2000. He savored this victory sip of milk just as much as the first.
“It tasted pretty good,” Ganassi said. “When you’ve been in this business as long as Mike and I have, there’s a few things you get out of the business. One of them is trophies, one of them is rings and one is a sip of milk. You know, outside of that, you don’t walk away from this business with much else. So that’s what’s special about that.”
Dixon finished second to Dario Franchitti in last year’s 500. And even though he is from New Zealand, Dixon has always wanted to win at this track.
“It’s almost like you’re in dreamland,” he said of his emotions as he pulled into Victory Lane. “It’s something that you sort of expect somebody to 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.”
For runnerup Vitor Meira, finishing second was just as special. The only driver on a Panther Racing team not nearly as well-funded as big guns Ganassi, Andretti Green or Team Penske, Meira led the race from laps 160-171 and was very much in contention for the win.
“This feels like a victory for us,” said Meira, who also finished second in 2005 driving for Rahal Letterman Racing. “How many guys counted me as leading lap 160? Not many. We did, and we believed it and we’re always going to.”
Marco Andretti’s third place finish was not unexpected, but not without controversy either. The 21-year-old, who drives for his father Michael’s team, dove to the inside of teammate Tony Kanaan on lap 106, causing Kanaan, who was the leader at the time, to move up in the groove. He got into the marbles and spun there to be collected by Sarah Fisher.
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Kanaan called Andretti’s pass a “stupid move. I think teammates shouldn’t do that to teammates.” Kanaan has led the race seven years in a row but has never won.
Andretti wasn’t ready to accept blame for the crash.
“I had a huge run and I went for it,” he said. “Maybe it was a bit too late (and) you hate to see this stuff happening with teammates but I had a run and I went for it.”
Fisher, who is funding her team on her own, was devastated.
“It was such a terrible day,” she said through tears.
The race was slowed by eight cautions for 69 laps.
“There were so many yellows,” Dixon said, “it was hard to get into a rhythm.”
Eleven rookies qualified for the race, the most since the 1996, the first 500 under the Indy Racing League banner. The day ended early for many of them. Graham Rahal was the first to go — getting too high in Turn 4 and crashing on lap 37. Jaime Camara, Justin Wilson and Alex Lloyd also crashed.
Better fortunes fell to the team of Rahal’s father, Bobby. Ryan Hunter-Reay finished sixth, the highest for a rookie this year.
“I’m so relieved,” Hunter-Reay said. “This is a great finish for us.”
Jane Miller can be reached at 686-3207 or jmiller@pjstar.com.
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