Yahoo Autos IndyCar Great Scott Dixon Faces Latest, Maybe Last, Best Shot to Catch A.J. Foyt
Scott Dixon, who at 42 years old, is the oldest of the five drivers who will be battling it out for the 2022 NTT IndyCar Series championship.
Dixon is going for a record-tying seventh IndyCar championship in the season-ending finale.
If successful, he will tie legendary A.J. Foyt for most titles in IndyCar competition.
Seasons change, drivers’ ages—and their personalities and incentives sometimes—change, and championships change. None are ever alike or the same.
There’s no better authority on that than Scott Dixon, who at 42 years old, is the oldest of the five drivers who will be battling it out for the 2022 NTT IndyCar Series championship this Sunday at Weather Tech Raceway Laguna Seca in Monterey, Calif.
Dixon is going for a record-tying seventh IndyCar championship in the season-ending finale. If successful, he will tie legendary A.J. Foyt for most titles in IndyCar competition.
Dixon won his first IndyCar championship in 2023 at the age of 23. Since then, he won titles at the ages of 28 (2008), 33 (2013), 35 (2015), 38 (2018) and 40 (2020).
Perhaps more so than any of his previous six IndyCar titles, winning for Dixon this year is more important than the others because this could potentially not only be the last chance he can go for a title, but it also could be the last chance he has at tying Foyt’s once seemingly untouchable record of seven championships.
“I think it changes every year, it changes every weekend,” Dixon told Autoweek. “I think that's what keeps it fun, just that it's a constant moving target. It's never the same or repetitive or anything like that.
“No matter where you start or how your weekend starts even, and how you dissect the weekend, especially in IndyCar, just because you're going from different disciplines, from short track ovals, to superspeedways, road courses, street courses, it's always something new.
“But if you look back to 2003, yes, it’s changed a lot. That was a season of all ovals. Now, we're a majority of road courses and street courses. How you win each championship is very different.
“When you look back on them, I think probably the biggest thing that always sticks with you is it's not necessarily the wins, but it's always the ones that maybe slipped away.”
Looking at his record, Dixon hasn’t let too many slip away. He has finished runner-up only twice in the final standings (2007 and 2009). Both seasons were especially gut-wrenching as he finished just 13 points behind teammate Dario Franchitti in 2007 and an even smaller 10 points behind Franchitti in 2009.
Franchitti would go on to win four IndyCar championships in his career and currently serves as a driver coach/consultant for the same team Dixon races for, namely, Chip Ganassi Racing.
Dixon has tuned out talk about retirement, even though he’s struggled at times in recent years:
In 2021 he had just one win and five podiums and finished fourth
In 2019 he had just two wins, but 10 podiums and finished fourth
In 2017 he had just one win, seven podiums and finished third
Ironically, every time some observers started to undersell Dixon and believed maybe he would be better off hanging up his firesuit, each of those following seasons he came back to win the championship (although 2022 remains a work in progress, obviously).
Dixon comes into Sunday’s race tied with Josef Newgarden, both 20 points behind series leader Will Power. Also still in contention are this year’s Indianapolis 500 winner, Marcus Ericsson, who is 39 points behind Power, and the hottest drive of late, Scott McLaughlin, who is 41 points behind his Team Penske teammate.
Dixon, Newgarden, Ericsson and McLaughlin are essentially faced with the same situations of having to win the pole in qualifying and then win the race – and even that may not be enough, as all Power has to do is finish on the podium (namely, third place), and he would clinch his second career IndyCar championship (the first was in 2014).
While there is definitely pressure on Dixon and the other drivers, it’s part of the game. And as time has gone by, the Kiwi driver has learned to deal with that pressure.
“Sometimes it's harder, I think, when you've been in it longer because you know what's coming,” Dixon said. “I think when you're a rookie, especially in the first two or three years, it's all so very exciting, things are changing pretty quickly. You may be changing teams at that point in time as well.
“So, sometimes it's worse knowing what's coming than not knowing at all.”
Follow Autoweek contributor Jerry Bonkowski on Twitter @JerryBonkowski
