Dixon Celebrates Win At Mid-Ohio

LEXINGTON, Ohio -- Scott Dixon, you just won the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio. How are you going to do next?

He's not going to Disney World, but is the London Olympics a suitable substitute?

The trip for Dixon family was planned well in advance of the race on the 2.258-mile, 13-turn Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, and it will be a welcome break in the IZOD IndyCar Series schedule before gearing up for the three-race run in another boiling championship chase.

Click it: Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio box score

Dixon saved fuel when he needed, kept the No. 9 Target Chip Ganassi Racing car out of harm's way throughout 85-lap race and took advantage of every opportunity. Oh, and his pit crew performed admirably, too.

All told, it led to Dixon winning the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio for the fourth time in the past six years. His 29th victory tied Rick Mears for 10th all time.

Dixon, starting fourth, beat race leader and pole sitter Will Power off pit lane on Lap 57 (their second and final service stop) and went on to lead the driver of the No. 12 Verizon Team Penske car across the start-finish line by 3.4619 seconds.

In the second consecutive caution-free road race since 1987 (Laguna Seca, won by Robby Rahal; Miami-Tamiami Park, won by Michael Andretti), pit stops were key.

"These are such tight pit boxes here and (Dixon) had a clean in," said Power of the pit stop lap that included the third- and fourth-place running cars of Sebastien Bourdais and Dario Franchitti. "We had a tight in so some of that was me getting in. It’s hard for the fuel to get in clean because he has to step back from my front wing to swing in."

From Dixon's persepctive: "I think it definitely helped we had an open pit and Will had to come around us. Everyone thought we would be pitting at the exact same time and same place on the track so I got a good in. The guys in the crew did a fantastic time plugging in the fuel and getting the tires changed. It's just one of those perfect moments. Got the jump on him out of the pits and the rest was certain."

Power, who picked up three bonus points for winning the pole and leading the most laps, regained the points lead heading into the GoPro Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma on Aug. 26 as front-runner Ryan Hunter-Reay was running sixth but started to fall through the field midway through the quick race with an engine issue and finished 24th.

"It’s a very good points day," said Power, who has 379 points. "We’re happy to get the Verizon car on the podium. We’ll keep chasing after it. We’ll get a win here soon and keep going after that championship."

Hunter-Reay, driving the No. 28 Team DHL/Sun Drop Citrus Soda car, has 374 points. Helio Castroneves, who served a 10-grid spot penalty for an unapproved engine change, finished 16th and is third in the standings with 353 points.

"We were positioned pretty well just past halfway," Hunter-Reay said. "We were catching the leaders while still taking easy and saving fuel. I think we were a third-place car at the worst. Then the engine just started losing power and it just gradually got worse the longer we tried to run. It finally just gave up there at the end. It died a slow death.

"It's disappointing to start the day with a 23-point lead and leave in second place, but we'll get over this quick. There's a lot of racing still to go, and the only thing we can do is dig deep and move on. I think it's going to be a good championship fight, but you can't have any more days like this. I'm confident we're going to be right in it until the finish. It's certainly doable for us to win it all."

Dixon, who incurred a grid penalty two weeks earlier at Edmonton and rallied to gain seven positions to 10th, remained fourth in the standings but closed from 35 to two points of third place and is 28 points out of the lead.

"We gained 30-odd points just on first place today," said Dixon, a two-time series champion. "For us, that's big momentum. Big momentum. We are going into three tracks that we can for sure do well at. And I think that we will do well at. We definitely have the crew to do it. Fingers crossed that we can be in the hunt and stay in the hunt until the last race."

Three races -- one each on a road course, a street course and 2-mile oval -- remain.

Simon Pagenaud, driving the No. 77 Schmidt Hamilton HP Motorsports car, posted his fifth top-five finish in his rookie IZOD IndyCar Series season. Bourdais was a season-high fourth in the No. 7 TrueCar Dragon Racing car and James Hinchcliffe, who started 15th, came in fifth.

“There was a lot of fuel saving, but we’re pulling it off," Bourdais said. "I think we could have dared it a little bit more. Both times we could have made it a lot further, and I think that would have been the hot ticket. But you don’t want to be the last one out there if they pull out the yellow and close the pits for any reason.

"The car was good. We needed the points finish. As much as I wanted to be on the podium, we will take P4 any day.”