Scott Dixon scored his third win at Texas Motor Speedway when he won the DXC 600, his second win of 2018 and second win in three races. Dixon held off Simon Pagenaud in second, Alexander Rossi in third, James Hinchcliffe in fourth and Ryan Hunter-Reay rounded out the top-five. Graham Rahal finished sixth, Takuma Sato finished seventh, eighth went to Sebastien Bourdais, and Ed Jones and Charlie Kimball rounded out the top-10.
“Good race, smooth, pretty tricky toward the end,” said Dixon. “Great team effort with everybody on the PNC crew, a great effort on their part.” Dixon also pointed out that the race was started on scuffed tires as they were a concern heading into the race.
Newgarden and Pagenaud started on the front row, with Newgarden leading early before the race’s first caution on Lap 5 when the No. 4 entry of Matheus Leist lost power and pulled off the track. Leist emerged uninjured as his AJ Foyt Racing entry caught fire. Shortly after his AFR teammate Tony Kanaan pulled off the track after contact with the wall led to suspension problems, an issue rookie Zack Veach also faced after scraping the wall.
Tire issues plagued the race early, as several drivers including the Penske cars of Will Power and Newgarden made stops to change tires out of sequence with the rest of field. Most of the race was run under green until Lap 173 when the lapped car of Ed Carpenter turned down on rookie Robert Wickens, sending both into the wall and out of the race.
The night’s biggest incident happened on Lap 205 when the 12 of Power slid into rookie Zachary Claman De Melo, who was making a pass on the outside of Power off of the fourth turn. Both went into the wall with Power taking the most damage. Both drivers retired from the race and Power will be facing a penalty for the incident.
Pagenaud summed up the race as being fast and physical, although his runner-up finish was his best finish at the speedway, an accomplishment third-place finisher Rossi can also hold onto.
Dixon was the dominant car of the night, leading 119 laps while Newgarden led 59 laps before being penalized on lap 226 for jumping the restart. Newgarden finished 13th, four laps down. Rookie Wickens also had a strong showing before his incident with Carpenter as he led 31 laps. His accident was his first oval DNF this season, having had his only other DNF in the first race of the season at St. Peterburg.
The next race will be June 24 at Road America on NBCSN.
