On lap 29 of the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix, Scott Dixon had his last run after an emergency service penalty for his injured car in a closed pit.
Fast-forward 51 laps, and Dixon was celebrating his 53rd INDYCAR SERIES win – tie-breaking Mario Andretti for second on the all-time list – in an unlikely victory Sunday in the streets of Nashville.
Dixon claimed his second win of the season at the No. 9 PNC Bank Chip Ganassi Racing Honda and took within six points of Will Power the NTT INDYCAR SERIES CHAMPIONSHIP with only three races left. Dixon is trying to match the seven-title series record held by A.J. Foyt, who also leads with 67 career wins.
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Kudos to the team, Dixon said. “We had a major accident there that removed half of the car’s floor. We had to take four laps of the front wing out, so we didn’t have a grip. Nashville is pretty cool.”
Scott McLaughlin finished second on the Penske Chevrolet No. 3 shootout at the DEX, just 1,067 seconds behind Dixon after a two-lap chase for the squares after a late red flag. It was the closest win margin this season on a street track or road track and the fourth-closest finish in those episodes in IndyCar history.
Series Champion Alex Ballou was third in race #10 NTT DATA Chip Ganassi Racing Honda, with the left front wing main jet flapping over bumps after friction earlier in the race.
Alexander Rossi rushed off several instances of friction during the race that made him swing to finish fourth at No. 27 NAPA AUTO PARTS/AutoNation Honda. Andretti Autosport teammate Colton Herta also recovered from the early call and went down to finish an unlikely fifth place in Gainbridge Honda’s 26th race.
The furious finish after 80 laps of full-friction, no-prisoners racing created a points race much tighter than piano wire with three races left. Only 33 points separate the top five in the standings, with a minimum of 51 points available for the race winner.
2014 Series Champion, Power, who finished 11th in his #12 Verizon-ranked team Penske Chevrolet car, edges Dixon by six points. 2022 Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge winner Marcus Ericsson, who finished 14th in 8th in the Husky Chocolate Chip Ganassi race, 12 points behind Power in third.
Nashville-area native Joseph Newgarden, who finished sixth in second on the Penske Chevrolet, is 22 points behind Power in fourth. Ballou is shining brightly in his bid to win his second consecutive title, 33 points behind Power in fifth.
It’s been the second year in a row of mayhem, dice-rolling and winning at Victory Lane that almost no one has seen after 80 laps of racing on a bumpy, narrow, 2.1-mile makeshift street circuit that includes two rides per lap. Korean Veterans Memorial Bridge over the Cumberland River.
A two-lap dash was created for the boxes on lap 76 when Newgarden and Romain Grosjean at 28 DHL Honda made a call in Turn 9 on restart as Newgarden advanced up the field, with Grosjean finishing in the tire barrier.
Race officials decided to throw the red flag on lap 77 so that the eventful race, which also included eight warning periods, ended with another suspense show.
The Dixon and the award-winning NTT P1 both had similar amounts of pressure to pass the remainder to restart, so this would end up in an eyelash-first two-ring duel. Neither did in a masterful display of driving skill, but Dixon timed the restart perfectly and created a small gap on McLaughlin.
As the two New Zealand drivers walked around the track for the last time, McLaughlin wasn’t close enough to Dixon to toss him over the bridge. Dixon swayed a little in the last corner before the squares, but McLaughlin couldn’t slip.
“We were worried about him because I knew he was going to take a risk,” Dixon said of McLaughlin. “He kind of has to be with the arrangement right now. He was very fast too. He had new tires too. I was a sitting duck. If there was a lap or two, it would have been hard to do.”
“We were right there across the finish line,” said McLaughlin. “But man, we were 16th in that last exchange and had a great restart, and then the car was fast. It just fell short at the end. Congratulations Scotty. Always dreaming of racing with him to the finish. She was That’s a proper duel.”
Baloo wasn’t too late at the end, finishing just 0.6100ths of a second behind Dixon. In fact, all of the top four cars finished within one second, with Rossi only 0.9412ths of a second behind the winner.
Dixon, who started in 14th, was collected in a chain reaction accident on lap 26 that damaged his floor and called for emergency service in a closed pit on lap 27, ordered back to the back of a running order as a penalty. Dixon stopped his last hole under the green on lap 51 and took one break later when Team Bitcoin Racing #21 with BitNile Chevrolet of Rinus VeeKay and #15 United Rentals Honda of Graham Rahal called into Turn 4 and started a cautious period.
The top 10 field cars were placed during this warning, which helped Dixon ride the bike toward the front of the field. Dixon took the lead for the first time — and forever — when Newgarden stopped on the last hole on Lap 66.
Dixon received $10,000 from the PeopleReady Force for Good Challenge for the victory, to be split between his team and his charity, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
The next NTT INDYCAR SERIES event is the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 presented by Axalta and Valvoline on Saturday, August 20 at World Wide Technology Raceway in Madison, Illinois, across the Mississippi River from St. Louis. Live coverage on USA Network and INDYCAR Radio begins for the final oval race of the season at 6 p.m. ET.
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