IndyCar star Scott Dixon runs away with Genesys 300 as pro sports return to Texas
Scott Dixon showed once again why he’s considered the best IndyCar driver of his generation.
Dixon had the dominant car in a jam-packed day Saturday, posting the fastest practice time, qualifying second and then taking the checkered flag in the Genesys 300 at Texas Motor Speedway.
“It was such a team effort,” said Dixon, the 39-year-old from New Zealand. “It’s just so fast. Any situation we were in, we could just go for it.”
It marked the opening race for IndyCar’s 2020 season after shutting down in mid-March amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The race was closed to the general public — something that might have been welcomed with temperatures pushing triple-digits much of the day.
Gov. Greg Abbott made an appearance and was in the pace car to start the first professional sporting event in the state following the pandemic. Approximately 900 people were on the grounds for the entire one-day, made-for-TV event with practice and qualifying in the afternoon and the race starting shortly after 7 p.m. on NBC.
Seeing Dixon win came as no surprise. It’s the fourth victory for Dixon at the track, tying him for most all-time with Helio Castroneves. Dixon also won in 2008, 2015 and 2018 — years he also went on to win the series championship.
Dixon now has 47 career wins, third-most of all-time and the most among active drivers. A.J. Foyt holds the record with 67 victories and Mario Andretti ranks second with 52. Dixon matched Foyt’s record of 18 seasons with a win.
Dixon, driving the No. 9 Honda for Chip Ganassi Racing, turned in a dominant performance by leading 157 of the 200 laps. He pulled away from runner-up Simon Pagenaud and third-place finisher Josef Newgarden during a late restart with three laps left.
Dixon finished 4.4 seconds ahead of Pagenaud on a race that took just 1-hour, 38-minutes and 37.76 seconds to complete.
Newgarden, the defending champion and pole sitter, led for 41 laps. Zach Veach is the only other driver who led during the race (two laps). Veach finished fourth and Ed Carpenter was fifth. Veteran Tony Kanaan placed 10th in his final race at Texas, which gave him a track-record 16 top 10s at the track.
“I feel like we won the race with how bad we were,” Newgarden said. “My team fought. If there’s anything, we have an incredible fighting spirit. ... We were just struggling. I was really struggling with vibrations on the tires.”
The story of the night was Dixon, who extended his track-record in laps led to 674. The only downside is the victory came with no fanfare.
“Bummed that the fans aren’t here,” Dixon said. “I wish everyone was here to celebrate.”
Coming into the race, most expected veteran drivers to have the edge. They had more seat time at a track such as Texas and more experience in general.
However, the early afternoon practice and qualifying sessions sent different signs. Veterans such as Carpenter, Ryan Hunter-Reay and Takuma Sato all had issues. Sato, the pole-sitter for the 2019 race at Texas, hit the wall hard enough during qualifying that he wasn’t even able to start a couple hours later.
Much of the issues in the afternoon were attributed to either rust, or a leftover rubber compound called PJ1 Track Bite from the NASCAR races last November. The residue from that made the track slicker and made drivers hesitant about running on the high-groove.
Either way, once the green flag dropped, it became apparent that Dixon had the car to beat. And experience mattered.
Rookies Rinus VeeKay and Alex Palou had short nights, tangling up in a race-ending accident on Lap 37. VeeKay appeared to lose the backend of his car coming off Turn 2.
In the end, as NBC analyst Townsend Bell put it, Dixon was “untouchable tonight.”
With the IndyCar race in the books, TMS will now shift its focus to the NASCAR races coming to town next month. All three NASCAR series are scheduled to run July 18-19.
This story was originally published June 6, 2020 at 9:09 PM.
