FORT WORTH, Texas – Scott Dixon let his No. 9 PNC Bank Honda make a statement with the fastest speed in Saturday’s NTT IndyCar Series practice session for Saturday night’s Genesys 300.
After running a speed of 215.995 mph around the 1.5-mile Texas Motor Speedway, Dixon talked about how fast-paced the one-day schedule is for the drivers and crews.
The teams left Indianapolis on a charter flight at 6 a.m. and had to go through medical clearance before entering Texas Motor Speedway. They were on track at 1 p.m.
“We were trying to run though lots of things, pit crews and some things happened in the rookie session,” Dixon said from the PNC Bank Chip Ganassi Racing team transporter. “There may have been a time crunch trying to get to qual and ace running stuff. We didn’t get a chance to do some of the things we would have liked in the race running. There was a dash issue getting the duct to open so we had to fix that.
“The car felt pretty good. It’s hard to tell. There was a lot of separation between the quick cars and the slow cars. It took a lot of time for some cars to get up to speed and that was interesting. We worked on other things to make sure we were covering all bases.
“It was a lot to get through on that front.”
Dixon is a five-time NTT IndyCar Series champion and three-time Texas Motor Speedway winner.
He and the rest of the field will return to the track for qualifications at 5 p.m. E.T., followed by the race that will be televised live on NBC with the broadcast beginning at 8 p.m. ET.
It’s the opening race to the COVID-19-delayed NTT IndyCar Series season.