NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Another wild weekend in Nashville for the NTT IndyCar Series culminated with an historic moment as Scott Dixon, the six-time NTT IndyCar Series champion, scored his 53rd career IndyCar win in Sunday’s Big Machine Music City Grand Prix.
That broke a tie with the great Mario Andretti for No. 2 on the all-time IndyCar victory list.
Only AJ Foyt, with 67, has more IndyCar wins than Dixon.
His second victory of the season elevated Dixon to second in points, just six points behind the leader, Will Power of Team Penske. Power finished 11th.
It was the fourth-closest road and street course finish in IndyCar history as Dixon defeated Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin by 0.1067-of-a-second.
The thrilling finish was set up after Josef Newgarden was involved in a crash with Romain Grosjean in Turn 9 on lap 76. Grosjean was out the race and IndyCar Race Control red-flagged the race to clean up the area of Grosjean’s crash and guarantee a green-flag finish.
When the race was restarted, there were two laps to go. After Dixon spun the wheels, he was able to gain traction and his No. 9 PNC Bank Honda was able to hold off McLaughlin for the win.
“That was wild,” Dixon said. “It was a wild day.
“We had a good start. I thought things were going well. We came into the first stop and the hose failed and we went all the way to the back and got in all the chaos in Turns 5 and 6 and got hit pretty hard.”
For the second year in a row, the winning car had been involved in a damaging crash earlier in the event. Last year, it was Chip Ganassi Racing driver Marcus Ericsson who went airborne in a crash and landed on all four wheels. After seven pit stops, Ericsson was able to win the race in stunning fashion.
Dixon didn’t go airborne, but he certainly had an issue earlier in the race when he got drilled in the rear of the car as Jack Harvey’s Honda slowed down on lap 26.
It lifted the rear of Dixon’s car off the ground, but he did not go airborne. Dixon had to pit for rear-end damage and the crew had trouble getting one of the rear wheels off the No. 9 Honda because of suspension damage.
“We couldn’t get the wheel off because it was stuck on the brake caliper, so it took the team a while to get off and then it ripped a bunch of the underfloor off the car as well,” Dixon said. “For the car was bent and broken.”
His Chip Ganassi Racing crew was able to get Dixon back onto the track, but he was mired in the back of the field. One of the key moments for Dixon came on lap 50 when Christian Lundgaard, Will Power, Rinus VeeKay and Dixon all made pit stops.
One lap later, VeeKay and Graham Rahal crashed in the Turn 4 wall as VeeKay was trying to get his tires up to temperature. The pits were opened on lap 54, but Newgarden, Dixon, Lundgaard and Power were all able to cycle to the front of the field.
The green flag waved on lap 56 and Dixon was back in contention for the race victory.
“For us, strategy wise, to take no tires on the last stop allowed us to jump a few people and have enough fuel for the end,” Dixon said. “It was hard to drive because the car had no grip. Each time on the restart and I was actually praying for a few more accidents.
“If the race had gone another lap, I would have never been able to hold off McLaughlin.”
But he would have to survive another wild weekend on the streets of Nashville, where drunken debauchery and wild Bachelorette Parties rule the nightlife district on Broadway.
Last year’s race had nine caution periods and two red flags.
This year’s race had eight caution periods and one red flag. IndyCar and race officials decided to move the flagstand for starts and restarts to the Korean War Veterans Bridge to give the racers a longer straight to sort out the field before a turn.
The checkered flag would be waved at last year’s traditional location in the front of the pits.
For the first eight laps of the race, the new course appeared to work as the field made it through the 2.1-mile, 14-turn street course without serious incident.
But on lap 8, Alexander Rossi was the first driver to bring out the caution when he drove off course in Turn 10. Colton Herta’s Honda was next, and it began a pattern of incidents similar to last year.
In-between were some moments of interest, such as Jimmie Johnson’s pitting off strategy where he made it all the way to second place on lap 24. The off-pit strategy worked as he settled into 12th place late in the race on his way to his best-ever IndyCar finish on a street and road course race.
But seven laps to the finish, a front suspension failure sent his car into the Turn 4 wall and his day was over in 18th place.
The green flag waved on lap 76 with Dixon in the lead. But the field didn’t make it a full lap before the Newgarden incident with Grosjean, which would erupt into a Twitter war between the Team Penske driver and various fans.
“Welcome to IndyCar,” Newgarden said, referring to Grosjean. “It gets tight. He’s been on a worse end of that. I don’t know what to tell him. Good thing I was ahead. That’s the biggest thing. You’re going to want to be ahead of this guy at this type of moment, but yep, it’s tight street course racing. Let me tell you what, I about got taken out six times myself.”
The red flag stopped the race for 11 minutes, 54 seconds.
Dixon sat in his car and plotted his restart that would drive him into history.
“We were worried about him because I knew he would take chances,” Dixon said of McLaughlin. “He kind of has to with the standings at the moment. He was super-fast, as well. He had fresh tires, too. I was a sitting duck. If there had been a lap or two more, it would have been really tough to do.”
McLaughlin believes he was a little too conservative on his restart and that allowed Dixon to get a better restart.
But McLaughlin knew it was going to be a great points day as he moved up to sixth, 58 points back with three races left in the championship.
“We were alongside there across the finish line,” McLaughlin said. “But man, we were 16th on that last pit exchange and had an awesome restart, and then the car was fast. Just fell short at the end. Congrats to Scotty. Always dreamed of racing him to the finish. That was a proper duel.”
Dixon and McLaughlin are both from New Zealand. When McLaughlin joined IndyCar after the most successful career in Australian Supercar history, he admitted that he was star-struck by Dixon.
He grew up idolizing the six-time NTT IndyCar Series champion.
On Sunday, the two drivers from New Zealand were engaged in a fight to the checkered flag, something McLaughlin dreamed about.
“It was one of the best races of my career,” McLaughlin said. “I had a lot of fun. It was an awesome battle. Getting lucky on strategy or not, that happens in motorsports. To go toe-to-toe with Scottie was awesome.
“That star-struck is gone. We’re more ‘mates’ now and that is cool. Scott is a phenomenal race car driver, a phenomenal guy, a phenomenal bloke. He is the greatest of all time and doesn’t get the credit that he deserves in my opinion.”
Alex Palou’s No. 10 NTT DATA Honda finished third. He was actually congratulated by team owner Chip Ganassi, who is suing the driver from Spain over a contract dispute that has been widely reported.
“He’s happy because he has two cars on the podium now,” Palou said.
And one of those on the podium has earned a position on the “Mount Olympus of IndyCar” with his 53rd career victory.