1,000 Greatest Drivers: Scott Dixon
I shut off charges for the month of June.
Now that I suddenly out of nowhere have three jobs that will probably add up to full-time work between them and since I still want to visit my mom in the nursing home as much as I can, I’ve decided to vastly slow down my output with regard to this book project since I don’t think I can take on all that and release as many columns as I was doing before. While I definitely appreciate those of you who subscribed to me in my more fallow months, I’ve decided to shut off charges since I know I can’t release anywhere near as many columns as before. I’m not out of the woods yet financially but I believe I will have completed enough work in a couple days to cover my next mortgage payment, and then a couple weeks later I should have enough to catch up on my other bills. I still want to release columns whenever I can and I certainly intend to release several a week if I can, but not every day like I was doing. I think on many of the days I don’t release columns, I might go through and do the season-by-season grades for drivers I haven’t done yet since that will be vastly less time-consuming than just the writing. I’ve also decided now that I’m not charging that I want to remove my paywalls for the current columns to see if I can build more of an audience.
I know Rick Mears is the column that I was working on last week, but I ended up writing the Scott Dixon column instead because I had a spare hour as I was sitting in the Heritage Hill bar before trivia started at 7:00 so I scribbled this in one of my old notebooks from the ‘90s just as I did for the Sam Hornish column. I think the Mears column will require more research since I wasn’t around for his career, while Dixon was obviously easier as I’ve pretty much followed his entire career. While riding the bus to visit my mom, I have been reading John Oreovicz’s Indy Split book (which I won) and I have been enjoying it and I’ve learned stuff, but I’ve already caught over ten errors in it and I’ve barely read 100 pages. Some were minor like spelling errors, but the biggest ones were Oreovicz claiming Bill Elliott won the Winston Million in 1987, Tim Richmond’s first NASCAR win was in 1983 (not 1982), and Buick winning the Indy 500 pole in 1993 (he’s obviously thinking of Roberto Guerrero in 1992, ‘cause I know Arie Luyendyk won the pole in ‘93 in a Ford). I know he’s an IndyCar reporter and not a NASCAR reporter, but you’d still think a thirty-year IndyCar reporter would know the basic NASCAR lore like Elliott… I’m surprised nobody proofread/fact-checked that for him and it makes me wonder how many mistakes he made in the areas I know less about (the chassis/engine rule specifications, etc...) Admittedly, there’s no real money in those kind of services anymore, particularly for a boutique publisher like Octane Press. I wonder if they’d want me…
Yesterday, I had an appointment with the gastroenterologist and I scheduled a colonoscopy for August 6. I’ve continued to have chronic diarrhea no doubt as a result of my eating disorder, but I also know bowel issues are linked with autism as well (which is something that has not yet been properly explained but is well-known). Although I was diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome on my 29th birthday in 2014 only a couple days after I received my autism diagnosis, I need to make sure it’s not Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis or something worse. But I am terrified. I already had a colonoscopy scheduled for 2018 and I canceled it. I was hoping they’d give me the pill as prep instead of having to drink the Miralax solution, which I am afraid I will gag like I do with many things I have never ingested before. But I do think I need to do this and build up my courage somehow…
SCOTT DIXON.…………NEW ZEALAND
Born: July 2, 1979
Best year: 2003
Best drive: 2005 Watkins Glen Indy Grand Prix
The most successful 21st century IndyCar driver, Dixon was the first driver to put up comparable numbers to A.J. Foyt and Mario Andretti. While I wouldn’t rank him in their league since he wasn’t as versatile, IndyCar had lost significant prestige since the CART/IRL split, and increased reliability and the lack of technical innovations made it easier for top teams to become dynasties, he was nonetheless one of his generation’s greatest drivers. After winning the 2000 Indy Lights title, PacWest Racing promoted Dixon to CART for 2001. That year, he won at Nazareth in his third start to become the youngest-ever CART winner, earning PacWest’s first win and top ten points finish since 1997. Although PacWest shut down in mid-2002, Toyota wanted to keep him and arranged for him to join Chip Ganassi Racing. When Ganassi switched to the IRL in 2003, he chose to keep Dixon while letting Bruno Junqueira go even though Junqueira had outperformed him.
Dixon was dominant immediately, winning his first IRL race and title, setting an IRL record for consecutive laps led, and even leading my open wheel model globally. In 2004 and 2005, Ganassi badly struggled as Toyota prepared to leave the IRL and Dixon was nearly fired. However, he saved his career with a wet-weather win at Watkins Glen. Dixon returned to form after Toyota’s withdrawal. After narrowly losing the 2007 title to Dario Franchitti, he dominated in 2008 with six wins including his only Indy 500. Franchitti joined him at Ganassi in 2009 and won three straight titles, but Dixon was rarely far behind and actually won their head-to-head since he remained elite after the DW12 chassis was introduced while Franchitti fell off massively. In 2013, Dixon earned his third title while Franchitti had a career-ending crash.
Afterward, Dixon unambiguously led the Ganassi team through 2020. Although Penske drivers were often faster, Dixon had the best racecraft while Ganassi’s managing director Mike Hull was also vastly superior to Penske’s strategists. Dixon won the 2015 title in a tiebreaker over Juan Pablo Montoya, who’d led the points for the entire season before the finale. He won the 2018 title despite making no passes for the lead. In 2020, Dixon led the points all year. However, he finally met his match in Álex Palou, who won four titles in his first five Ganassi seasons. By that point, Dixon finally looked old.
Dixon holds numerous IndyCar records including most starts, consecutive starts, consecutive winning seasons, and Indy 500 laps led. He’s also the only IndyCar driver who led my model seven times. Nonetheless, I think he’s slightly overrated. His 57 wins and six titles (both ranking second behind Foyt) inflate his actual performance mainly due to career stability, reliable cars, lack of injuries, and Ganassi’s strategic advantage. Furthermore, the fact that his teammates won seven titles to his six and four Indy 500s to his one makes him look less great in retrospect. While I don’t think he’s IndyCar’s goat, he certainly has a case.
Open wheel model: #60 of 916 (.235)
Teammate head-to-heads: 420-189 (19-3 vs. Marcus Armstrong, 4-4 vs. Kenny Brack, 15-4 vs. Ryan Briscoe, 21-2 vs. Max Chilton, 40-17 vs. Marcus Ericsson, 38-31 vs. Dario Franchitti, 9-1 vs. Mauricio Gugelmin, 23-0 vs. Jimmie Johnson, 11-2 vs. Ed Jones, 2-7 vs. Bruno Junqueira, 32-21 vs. Tony Kanaan, 6-2 vs. Sage Karam, 69-17 vs. Charlie Kimball, 7-5 vs. Linus Lundqvist, 4-7 vs. Darren Manning, 26-34 vs. Alex Palou, 2-0 vs. Giorgio Pantano, 19-8 vs. Graham Rahal, 6-2 vs. Tony Renna, 19-4 vs. Felix Rosenqvist, 4-0 vs. Sebastian Saavedra, 3-0 vs. Takuma Sato, 8-1 vs. Tomas Scheckter, 1-1 vs. Oriol Servia, 10-1 vs. Kyffin Simpson, 22-15 vs. Dan Wheldon)
Touring car model: N/A
Teammate head-to-heads: 0-4 (0-1 vs. Jason Bargwanna, 0-1 vs. Owen Kelly, 0-1 vs. Rick Kelly, 0-1 vs. Alex Tagliani)
Year-by-year: 2000: C, 2001: C+, 2003: 1, 2004: C-, 2005: C, 2006: C+, 2007: E-, 2008: 3, 2009: E, 2010: E, 2011: E-, 2012: E, 2013: E, 2014: C+, 2015: E, 2016: E-, 2017: E, 2018: E-, 2019: E-, 2020: 4, 2021: C+, 2022: C+, 2023: C+, 2024: C+