Dixon could end up the best IndyCar driver ever
When his career is done, Scott Dixon may redefine the way we talk about greatness in American open-wheel racing.
At the very least, he's necessitated the invention of a new adjective to describe the show he's put on for 20 years.
Is it still “consistency” when your consistent performance is, more often than not, better than any other driver's? When your win total approaches those of legends Mario Andretti and A.J. Foyt – and you're closing fast? When you're second all-time in series championships, second-place finishes and trips to the podium? When you're seemingly better less than two weeks away from 40 than you were at 25, and when it's almost laughable to approach a discussion about when the end might finally come?
No, others might – and often do – use “consistent” to describe the longtime Chip Ganassi Racing driver, but the adjective seems an ill fit. And what's more, Dixon doesn't much care for it. Few conversation topics raise the timbre of the even-tempered New Zealander's voice, but that's one.
“It can be a little bit of a strange word, consistency,” said Dixon in an exclusive interview with IndyStar last month. “It can be a bit ‘average' as well. I guess, as long as you're consistently continually contending for championships, or winning championships, that's a good one.
“Teams in my early years were happy to get a top-10 and ecstatic for a top-five, whereas you walk through the door at Ganassi, and you can feel
that pressure. They weren’t the happiest, cheeriest bunch of people, but they were if you won.”
Dixon’s 2020 start is unmatched by him in his career, and he’s had a longer winning streak at any point in the year just twice. And yet, it doesn’t feel particularly abnormal.
If you’d told a well-informed racing fan at the start of June, given all the weird circumstances and obstacles facing drivers and teams this year, that Dixon would not only win, but dominate, the first two races of year, few would have batted an eye.
It’s drawn few major headlines, as attention around the series is focused on the new aeroscreen, whether and at what capacity fans are allowed at races and what may happen with the Indy 500. All the while, the 39-year-old driver and his CGR team have thoroughly crushed the rest of the field – and there’s little reason to doubt them entering this weekend’s doubleheader at Road America.
Legends around the sport say the lack of buzz around Dixon’s 2020 start runs parallel to the rest of his career in many ways – an underrated driver who rarely isn’t in contention in the final quarter of an IndyCar race and who is hard to not name the favorite in anything: an upcoming race, Indy 500 or series championship.
That’s how Dixon likes it. He’d rather not be talked about, though his success makes it increasingly difficult. He’d rather paint his career with numbers, now and years down the road. Already, that story
So many drivers in recent decades need more than just the numbers to tell their story. Rick Mears has four Indy 500s, but says he’s never felt he deserves to be part of that fraternity of four-time winners. He won only 29 times in his career — a relatively small number among other greats.
Michael Andretti won 42 times, though never the 500. It’s hard to think of the driver, now owner, and not immediately think “what if ” for so many reasons.
Same with his father, Mario, whose 52 wins make him secondwinningest of all time, with Dixon closing in fast at 48. But In 30 years, Mario amazingly won just one 500 and holds the American open-wheel racing record for second-place race finishes (56).
There’s Helio Castroneves (no series titles), Paul Tracy (no 500s) and Sebastien Bourdais (37 wins, but 31 in a watered-down Champ Car).
Maybe it’s fitting that Foyt, who sits atop the series records for wins (67), championships (seven) and 500s (four), holds maybe the only career without glaringly obvious holes to be poked.
Foyt, Andretti and...Dixon?
Dixon cares about the little things. There’s a record he’s quick to bring up, rather unprompted, as he harkens back to the last time he missed an IndyCar start, at Milwaukee in 2004.
You can tell it sticks with Dixon. Just like how he was deprived of starting the 2020 season with another shot at winning at St. Pete for the first time. Just like how “annoying” it had been to finish runner-up on the IMS road course three years running, up until last Saturday’s run-away win.
Maybe that’s because, as Dixon sees it, the little things really do matter. If you’re going to do the same thing for 20 years and continue to pursue it with three young kids at home, you’ve got to care about the small parts of the process. All those small things, he and his team hope, add up to a race weekend win — each individual one its own end game to Dixon.
“He’s still on top of his game,” Mario Andretti said, “and I know he has goals to go after. “And they’re reachable. Even though I know he only looks at one race at a time, deep down he probably says ‘Oh hell yeah, I’m gunning for it all.’ His goals, whatever they are, are reachable.”