Force to be reckoned with
Scott Dixon explains IndyCar’s physical toll
It was the late 1990s when Scott Dixon made the move that would change his life and propel him towards becoming one of America’s premier motor racing stars.
Dixon, the Australian Formula Holden champion, had decided to bypass Supercars to chase his IndyCar dream. But despite rigorous preparations, the Kiwi was in for a rude physical awakening.
“I started training pretty heavily while I was still racing in Australia, before I got to America to race in Indy Lights,” the Aucklander tells the Weekend Herald from Indiana, where he is preparing for Monday’s famous Indianapolis 500.
“It was a shock, the physicality of it, definitely for the first portion of that season. Depending on the circuit that weekend, it was very tough.”
Fellow Kiwi Scott McLaughlin’s first full IndyCar season has further boosted New Zealand’s interest in the famous series.
And it has thrown the spotlight on what these drivers go through, and what McLaughlin is dealing with in his already-promising transition to a new class.
Or to repeat a common question: Do IndyCar drivers qualify as athletes?
Sift through the driver testimonies and talk to someone such as 40-year-old Dixon, and you are left amazed at what they cope with physically.
While incredible speeds on congested tracks provide the outward thrills, the remarkable strength and endurance needed to handle the notoriously difficult cars is astonishing.
There are huge downward forces involved — which aids cornering but makes steering overall much harder — along with the famous and potentially debilitating G-forces on drivers caused by acceleration.
There are various types of IndyCar tracks, and a few like the famous one in Indiana are so dangerous that newcomers Romain Grosjean, from Formula 1 ranks, and Nascar legend Jimmie Johnson have opted to sit them out for now.
But whatever the danger levels, the physical demands are always extreme.
Dixon, the reigning and six-time IndyCar champion, has prepared his mind and body so well, he is confident of continuing to succeed despite having reached his 40s. But don’t let the veteran’s continuing success fool you in terms of just how tough the sport is.
Dixon says the mentally draining Indy 500 is physically easier to cope with.
Shorter tracks such as in Iowa are tougher, as they demand constant correction to the right while turning left. Studies show the Iowa Speedway smashes drivers with up to six times the force of gravity for about half of each 18-second lap.
The typical IndyCar driver exhaustion levels were found to equal those of elite 1500m swimmers or marathon runners in one American academic study. The G-forces can be so great that drivers are unable to breathe when cornering at some tracks.
Dixon found his body shape was even being skewed when he raced on predominantly oval tracks early in his career, the body being pressed in one direction.
The recent introduction of aero screens — a windscreen — for safety reasons has also added to the heat problems the drivers deal with.
“I try to explain driving an IndyCar like this,” Dixon says. “When people do go-karting for seven minutes, their hands are sore and they’re out of breath. Well, times that by 100. The G-loads are high, your heart rate is 160 to 180. A lot of us do extensive training based on triathlons and long endurance events to have the cardiac capacity you need.
“A lot of our practice days are gone now, so conditioning is much more important, because you used to get fit by testing.
“When I first came to the series, we did 50 to 60 tests a year. Now, we’re limited to five or six. And it’s hard to get fit by not driving the car.
“How you feel after the race often depends on how good the car is — some of the hardest days are when you are further down the pack.
“It’s kind of tough on the body — IndyCar is probably the toughest car and the steering weight is high. “When Grosjean first tested from F1, he was shocked how physical the car was.”
Scottish IndyCar great Dario Franchitti, an adviser at Dixon’s Chip Ganassi team, went on a special mission aimed at letting the public understand what the likes of Dixon endure.
“You hear that talk about whether drivers are really athletes, and I get asked that from time to time, so I wanted to have some concrete numbers to go off,” Franchitti told roadandtrack.com.
With help from team engineers, who used on-board data and sensors throughout the car, he found braking could involve applying a force just over 60kg. A driver might have to do this 250 times in an 85-lap race.
Breathing is the subject which might cause the most surprise.
Of the Mid-Ohio course, Franchitti said: “You can’t breathe above a certain number of G forces, so you get into the corner and brace yourself like a fighter pilot does when he’s making a hard turn.
“You’re at turn one, hold your breath, get through the corner, breathe, breathe, breathe on the straight, brace yourself for turn two, hold your breath [and so on]. It’s kind of mental really.”
There is one key factor which makes driving in IndyCar particularly tough — the lack of power steering. This subject looms large when talking to Dixon.
“IndyCar is the last formula without power steering, so there are high loads and the kick back in the [steering] wheel from bumps and corrections is extremely high, so it is extremely physical,” Dixon told the Weekend Herald.
“You have to be very quick getting your hands off the wheel if you are about to touch a wall, or crash because of the amount of energy which goes into your hands. I’ve broken fingers and bones and wrists, torn ligaments off my hand, I’ve had two or three surgeries on my hands from crashes.”
New cool suits are being tried by some, complementing the inlet cooling and helmet pumpers. But drivers still get “baked”. Dixon might lose 2kg-3kg during a race.
“Don’t get me wrong . . . the average heart rate is pretty high and the long races are exhausting depending on the temperature.
“It’s funny — you get into that zone of not realising how far you’re pushing the body until you stop, lose the adrenaline and come down a bit.”
Athletes or not? The answer is pretty clear.