Motor sport
Scott Dixon has established himself as one of the alltime greats of American motor racing after winning the IndyCar championship for the fourth time. The low-key Kiwi, now 35, is by far the winningest driver of the current contingent, with 34 victories. Dixon also won four races in the Champ Car series before joining the IndyCar championship.
IndyCar is the world’s second-most important single-seater series, second only to Formula One – and indeed it includes some ex-F1 drivers, such as Juan Pablo Montoya, who finished second to Dixon this year on tie-break. Montoya, who has been racing Nascar in recent seasons, scored the same number of points as Dixon but the Kiwi won the title because he had won more races – four to three.
“We knew at the start of the weekend the title was still a chance, and that’s what we were hoping for,” Dixon said, his Kiwi accent still clear after all his years in America.
Though clearly elated, his reaction was also restrained – he is not given to great displays of public emotion, and the death a week earlier of his friend Justin Wilson was weighing on his mind.
“We were such a long shot to win it, and we won it on countback. I can’t believe it. This is fantastic. I don’t know what to say. Thoughts and prayers first to Justin Wilson’s family.”
Fellow Indycar driver Wilson had died after being hit by a piece of flying debris at the Pocono circuit, a tragedy which is leading to calls for increased cockpit safety for single-seaters.
Dixon’s team owner, Chip Ganassi, saluted his driver: “I think he’s arguably the driver of our generation, the IndyCar driver of our generation for sure. I think his stats speak for themselves.”
Former team-mate and friend Dario Franchitti, also a multiple Indycar champion, was equally warm in his praise: “You think about the names ahead of him now on the all-time winners list,” Franchitti said, “and Mount Rushmore is pretty soon going to have a tinge of Kiwi on that thing if he keeps chipping away.
“He’s one of the funniest, coolest guys you’ll ever meet, but he’ll share that with his friends, in private with his teammates, and that I think counts against him [in terms of public image]. But he’s such a hell of a race car driver. He’s got a lovely family, a load of money in the bank. Doesn’t change him. Doesn’t change his motivation, and a better human being you won’t meet.”
Only AJ Foyt has more American championships, with seven, but he operated in an earlier era when it was almost entirely an American affair, whereas now IndyCars includes many European and Latin American drivers while a lot of Americans prefer to race in the Nascar stock-car championship.
Dixon’s 34 victories in the current IndyCar era, which started in 1996, put him well ahead of Helio Castroneves and Will Power (both 23), Dario Franchitti (21) and Sam Hornish Jr (19).
Dixon went into that final race knowing the odds were stacked right against him. To take the title he had to win the race, gain the extra points for leading