INDY 500: Dixon’s Day

[leobold1]

AUTO-RACING - INDY 500: Dixon's Day - SPEEDtv.com

Written by: Jeff Olson
Senior writer, RACER Magazine
Racer Magazine - NASCAR, IndyCars, Champ Cars, NHRA Drag Racing, Formula 1
05/25/2008 - 04:42 PM
Indianapolis, Ind

Scott Dixon was simply the class of the field Sunday in the 92nd Indianapolis 500.

Dixon pulled away from Vitor Meira on a restart with 24 laps remaining and held off Meira’s charge in the final four laps to win the race. Dixon led the most laps in the No. 9 Target Chip Ganassi Dallara-Honda, and, while it was a commanding victory, it was far from dominating.

Meira and his No. 4 Panther Racing Dallara-Honda began closing on Dixon in the finallaps shaving his lead down to tenths of a second in the final four laps. However, Dixon and Meira encountered lapped cars in the final two laps of the race, and the traffic favored Dixon.

Meira held on for second, followed by Marco Andretti, Helio Castroneves, Ed Carpenter and Ryan Hunter-Reay.

[Snowden]

Safest Place Is in First; Dixon Wins Indy 500
Nam Y. Huh/Associated Press



Scott Dixon leading Vitor Meira and Marco Andretti in the final laps.


By DAVE CALDWELL
Published: May 26, 2008

INDIANAPOLIS — Scott Dixon won the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday, but he said that on his final laps he was worried about everything that could go wrong with his racecar. It was a startling admission. Dixon is called the Iceman for good reason.


Darron Cummings/Associated Press

Dixon led 115 of the 200 laps in the race, which was slowed by eight cautions.

“Quite frankly, at first I didn’t think he was that excited about racing,” said Chip Ganassi, the owner of Dixon’s car.

Ganassi has come to understand Dixon better since he joined his team six years ago. Ganassi now knows that Dixon, a 27-year-old native of Auckland, New Zealand, is a driver with quiet confidence — heavy emphasis on quiet.

He avoided the trouble that befell several other top competitors, including Danica Patrick. With the fastest car in the field, Dixon led 115 of 200 laps and won his first Indy 500, by less than two seconds over Vitor Meira of Brazil.

“This month, for me, was a month where I could be aggressive, because I had the tools to do it,” said Dixon, who started from the pole position.

Marco Andretti finished third. The race took nearly three and a half hours, an unusually long time in the modern era, because it was slowed by eight caution periods. Andretti might have caused one of them by darting inside his teammate Tony Kanaan, causing Kanaan to wreck.

Kanaan called Andretti’s move stupid. Andretti, 21, said, “Maybe it was a little bit last-minute, but I don’t know if it was a stupid move.”

Patrick, who also drives for the team owned by Andretti’s father, Michael, tangled with a car driven by Ryan Briscoe as they left the pits for what turned out to be the final pit stop of the race. She finished 22nd, her worst result in four races at Indianapolis.

Patrick said she was not surprised Dixon won. Besides winning the pole, he had posted top speeds during the few practice sessions that were held during a rainy month.

“Congrats to Dixon,” she said. “He was strong all month and deserves it.”
The race appeared as if it would be devoid of much action. Dixon and his teammate Dan Wheldon set the early pace, leading 83 of the first 93 laps. But Kanaan and Andretti tagged along, and Kanaan overtook Dixon for the lead on the 94th lap.

Wheldon, the 2005 Indy 500 winner, dropped back and finished 12th. Kanaan, who has never won the race, led for 12 laps before Dixon passed him on the inside for the lead on the 106th lap. Andretti passed Kanaan on the inside, too.

In an effort to stay clear of Andretti, Kanaan drifted high on the racetrack and scuffed his right rear tire against the Turn 3 wall. As Kanaan’s car dropped down to the middle of the track, it was plastered by the car driven by Sarah Fisher.

“It was a stupid move,” Kanaan said of Andretti’s pass. “I think teammates shouldn’t do that to teammates. I’m sure he will have a good explanation for what he did. Halfway through the race with a bunch of traffic, why are you going to dive into me like that?”

Neither Kanaan nor Fisher were injured, but Kanaan said Fisher was in tears after the accident. He hugged her. Fisher, 27, was the first female owner/driver in the race since Janet Guthrie in 1978, but her only car was badly damaged.

Fisher finished 30th of 33, far lower than the 10th place she had hoped for. She scrambled last week to find a primary sponsor for her car after a sponsor dropped out. She barely practiced. When the drivers were given the command to start their engines, hers did not. She spun out early in the race while appearing to warm her tires.

“This definitely sets us back a bit, but we’ll get over it,” Fisher said. “We got here in the first place with a lot to overcome, and we persevered through that. We can get through anything now.”

Dixon kept the lead for 16 more laps before Andretti thundered past him on the 122nd lap. It has been 39 years since Andretti’s grandfather Mario won the famous racing family’s only Indy 500. The crowd roared its approval, with many fans thrusting fists into the air.

Andretti led 16 of the next 18 laps before Dixon charged back into the lead for the fourth time in the race. With the leaders on the 153rd lap, the rookie Alex Lloyd hit the Turn 4 wall and spun onto pit road, wiping out the speed-limit cones.

The leaders made pit stops. Tomas Scheckter, who started 11th but had climbed to fourth, suddenly lifted himself from the car. The drive shaft was broken. Scheckter, a driver for the unheralded Luczo Dragon team, finished 24th.

Dixon lost the lead in the pits to Ed Carpenter, then zoomed back in front on the 159th lap. But Meira, who started eighth, drove between Dixon and Carpenter entering Turn 1 of the next lap and kept the lead until Milka Duno spun out on the grass.

“That’s my opportunity,” Meira said of his move to take the lead.

“I mean, I’m not going to have many opportunities from now on,” he added, referring to that point in the race, “and I’ve got to take that. So I never lifted, and what happened, happened.”

The leaders made pit stops during the eighth caution period, and Dixon took the lead from Meira with a faster stop and held it. Andretti had corrected a problem with the steering on his car, but he could not track down Meira.

“I think Scott would have beaten me,” Andretti said, “but I think, maybe, we would have finished second because I don’t think we would have had the speed to stay out front.”



http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/26/sp...html?th&emc=th

[leobold1]

Marco should be forced to pay for Fisher's repairs. That was a rookie move, and ruined her. Total BS.

Briscoe and his crew chief should be penalized. The crew chief's job is to watch for that on the way out of the pits, and he blew it totally.

Dixon ran a great race, one of the best Indy 500s I've seen in years.