For Scott Dixon, the Honda Indy Toronto is an event that he has always wanted to win. However, the victory had escaped him in each of his previous trips. He had four finishes within the top five, however also had two finishes outside of the top 20 to match that.
His luck all changed this past weekend as he was able to pick up not one win, but a pair of victories for the Honda Indy Toronto sweep.
“I love this place,” Dixon commented afterwards. “The town is a lot of fun. The fans are knowledgable and love what we do. It’s great to see the excitement they had here all weekend.”
Dixon was quick throughout the whole weekend, totally dominating the second of the two races in leading 81 of the 85 laps. If there was any snag to the weekend, it was the standing start.
“The concrete patch in one was very slippery, so I hit that and slid off,” Dixon said of the start. “I think I actually got into Helio (Castroneves) a little bit. Hopefully didn’t wreck his car or anything. Everybody got away cleanly. I was very surprised about that. I was expecting to hear full-course caution after the standing start.”
Dixon added that the middle part of the race went good as the car ran great and they had solid pit stops.
“Every time we did a pit stop, it seemed we would pick up three or four seconds,” Dixon commented. “Getting close to the finish of the race, you expect a lot of cautions. They started to come. We were in the right place at the right time. It worked out perfectly.”
With the pair of wins, Dixon picks up a $100,000 bonus from SONAX for the sweep. Though more importantly, Dixon closes the gap in points.
Dixon didn’t get off to the start that he would’ve hoped this year, with no wins and only five top fives in the first 11 races of the season. It seemed that the Ganassi cars were off at the beginning part of the year, opening the door for other teams to pick up wins. The first win for Ganassi was Dixon last weekend at Pocono Raceway.
“We’re here for the points,” Dixon said. “It’s been a helluva swing over a seven-day period. We were 92 points out an now we’re like 27 out. It’s ncie to put a little pressure on Helio, and hopefully we can keep that going.”
From the win at Pocono to the pair of wins in Toronto, Dixon has moved from seventh to second in points and put himself into championship contention.
“I think it’s still going to be a tough battle,” Dixon said. “I like the look of the tracks we have coming up. I think we are in the hunt. I think some tracks we’ll be a slight disadvantage to the Chevys, some we might have an advantage. This weekend was a bit of an eye opener for our team at least. Some of the other Hondas were not up maybe where they should have been.”
Now that Dixon has turned the corner, the question is being asked – what was causing them to be off this year till now?
“I think it’s a combination of things,” Dixon said. “Everybody has had a lot of sit-down time with Chip, which is always interesting, gets you a little refocused. People were kind of lacking confidence.”
Moving forward, the confidence is now there, espically going to Mid-Ohio, which is a track that Dixon has won at before.
“I’m confident in the fact that we’ve had cars that have worked there in the past,” Dixon said. “Areas where we’ve developed, Barber, the car was the best. We had to fight our way. Didn’t do my job as well as I should have in qualifying and just came up short. But, yeah, I think we’re all confident going into Mid-Ohio and hopefully that plays true.”
