‘It’s nice to be included and honestly it does mean a lot’

As Scott Dixon is crowned Supreme winner of Stuff’s 2020 Substitute Sports Awards, the six-time IndyCar champion tells Mat Kermeen about the sacrifices required to stay on top.

Because winning is nothing new to Scott Dixon it’s easy to assume some victories could be taken for granted.

However, it’s more important to remember that assumption is the mother of something that can’t be mentioned here.

Dixon, a six-time IndyCar champion, global sporting star and two-time winner of Sportsman of the Year at the Halberg Awards (2008 and 2013) – plus being ultra-unlucky in 2018 – has now also been crowned the winner of the Supreme gong in Stuff’s 2020 Substitute Sports Awards.

The awards are voted for by Stuff.co.nz’s sports’ journalists, who were not satisfied that New Zealand’s best athletes and teams shouldn’t be recognised for the incredible sacrifices they made to compete in 2020.

A year when the Halberg Awards were put on hold due to ‘‘international sporting events being severely affected in 2020’’ as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Stuff’s awards followed the Halberg’s usual criteria.

Dixon has also been named Sportsman of the Year, 24-hours earlier.

It’s no Halberg, but the IndyCar star says he’s honoured to be considered the Sportsman of the Year and Supreme Award winner.

If he wasn’t such a straightshooter and proud Kiwi you could almost think he’s taking the mickey.

He’s not.

‘‘It’s nice to be included and honestly that does mean a lot,’’ Dixon tells the StarTimes.

Despite everything he has achieved on the global stage, Dixon has never forgotten his humble beginnings.

‘‘Home,’’ is a word Dixon mentions a lot and home is and always will be New Zealand for the Kiwi who has lived in the US for more than two decades.

Any connection towards home in the current times also means that little bit more to Dixon.

‘‘My ties to New Zealand are very strong, and the only regret I have is not being able to get home as often as possible.’’

Not getting home in two years – except for a four-hour stint enroute to Bathurst for the 12-hour race in February 2020 – is ‘‘a real bummer’’.

Dixon and his wife Emma Davies-Dixon welcomed a third child in December 2019, a boy named Kit.

‘‘We have a newborn that none of my family has met. Luckily we’ve been able to take him to the UK to meet Emma’s family but we’re dying to get home, so we’re hoping that Christmas we will be able to get home this year,’’ Dixon said.

A tough blow for Dixon’s parents Glenys and Ron and one that their superstar son wishes could be different.

‘‘New Zealand looks like a pretty good place to be right now,’’ Dixon said as he sums the current Covid-19 landscape in the US.

He can chew the fat over most current events and sports in this country, it’s a form of connection to ‘‘home’’.

Dixon’s wins in Stuff’s awards come on the back of his sixth IndyCar title.

He now sits one championship short of the great AJ Foyt’s record seven titles. An incredible effort for a kid who started racing gokarts in the North Island. His 2020

championship came in the most challenging of environments due to the global health pandemic, but Dixon was upbeat.

‘‘It was one of those situations where if you were able to carry in your provided career . . . you feel super lucky,’’ Dixon said.

But it wasn’t always so clear-cut when the pandemic first brought the sporting world to a halt.

‘‘Honestly, the biggest thing for me was going to the first race in March and then going home on the Friday before we even hit the track, and then that two or threemonth period of nothing,’’ Dixon said. ‘‘I remember even Chip (team owner Chip Ganassi) saying, ‘hey we might not even go racing this year’.

‘‘I think that’s where it really hit home, and it showed me how much I love the sport and being around the people, and how much I love what I do and to have that maybe not happen was a stark reality for a lot of people.’’

But there were positives in that downtime.

‘‘It made me and my team a lot closer, it made myself and my family a lot closer, it actually put a lot of things into retrospect to what was meaningful to you in life.

‘‘I think everybody had those kind of days of having a lot more time to think and understand what’s more important in some ways.

‘‘I was able to speak to people back home that I hadn’t spoken to for maybe two or three years . . . and reach out to people that you maybe hadn’t in a while,’’ Dixon said.

However, even top athletes like Dixon got sick of watching replays on TV. ‘‘I was really craving live sport.’’

Dixon believes one of the great strengths of his team is their ability to adapt quickly to change, as evidenced by their start to last season post the Covid delay.

Under the 2020 Covid19 ravaged IndyCar landscape, Dixon won the first three races with his team-mate, Felix Rosenqvist, taking the fourth.

‘‘It was definitely a team effort,’’ Dixon said.

Due to pre-season testing commitments, Dixon has never attended a Halberg’s Awards night, but is looking forward to it when he can.

He believes the organisers were in a really tough situation this year and acknowledges they had many challenges, but in an ideal world he would have liked to have seen the awards go ahead, because ‘‘it’s important to celebrate what Kiwis do around the world’’.

‘‘It’s what inspires a lot of people, and it’s enjoyable for me to see other people’s success and doing well, and I think those people should be celebrated.

Dixon concedes he is very motorsport based, but was taken by Scott McLaughlin’s third consecutive Supercars championship as his sporting highlight of the year, and can’t wait to share the IndyCar grid with him this year.

He’s hopeful of seeing the Olympics go ahead in 2021 for Kiwi athletes to get their opportunity and would love to see Team New Zealand lift the America’s Cup next month.

Home is still clearly where the heart is for Stuff’s Supreme sporting champion.

‘‘We have a newborn that none of my family has met. Luckily we’ve been able to take him to the UK to meet Emma’s family but we’re dying to get home, so we’re hoping that Christmas we will be able to get home this year.’’ Scott Dixon, pictured with wife Emma