Every sports league’s 2020 will be described as “a strange season,” and the NTT IndyCar Series is no exception.
INDYCAR managed to cobble together a 12-race schedule through the COVID crisis, enough to ensure that the 2020 campaign won’t be marked in the future with an asterisk.
That’s important, because there’s a 99-percent probability that Scott Dixon will emerge from this weekend’s season-opening season-ending Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg with his sixth Indy car championship since 2003. The accomplishment will pull Dixon one step closer to the benchmark of seven Indy car titles collected by A.J. Foyt between 1960 and 1979.
Dixon also reached the milestone of 50 race wins this year, so it would be a shame for his season to be remembered for anything other than his usual excellence on the race track. The New Zealand native put a stranglehold on the championship trophy by winning the first three races of the delayed campaign, and he and the No. 9 Chip Ganassi Racing team have held on to the points lead despite an uncharacteristically poor series of results down the stretch.
Dixon can guarantee title number six by finishing ninth or better in Sunday’s 100-lap race, no matter what happens to Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden, who is the only eligible championship challenger. Newgarden boasts three victories this year and is the defending winner of the St. Petersburg GP.
St. Pete is one of the few tracks on the IndyCar Series calendar where Dixon has never won. The 1.8-mule layout is also the first and only street course on this year’s truncated IndyCar docket.
Newgarden looks like a solid bet to repeat his 2019 St. Pete win, but a non-disastrous day for the Ganassi driver should secure Dixon the crown.
“We just need to have a pretty simple weekend and try and keep it clean,” Dixon remarked. “Obviously the goal is to go for a win. That makes it a lot easier, then you don’t have to worry about any of the scenarios.
“Yes, there’s a little more on the line this weekend with being caught up in an accident, points and situations like that. I think when you start to cloud it and make it complicated, then it gets complicated. We’ll just try to keep it as simple as possible.”
Newgarden knows that he has to go for the win this weekend at any cost. “I feel like we’re definitely prepped and ready to rock for the weekend,” he said. “Just going there to try to win the race. That’s really all I can do. We’re excited to get back to a street course; it’s been awhile. We’ll see how it shakes out. We’re just going to go and do our thing, and see where everything lands at the end of it.”
That’s pretty much it for this weekend’s storylines. Third place in the championship is still up for grabs, with Colton Herta leading Will Power and Graham Rahal. Power is the only other driver who won more than one race in 2020; individual race winners include Herta, Felix Rosenqvist, Simon Pagenaud, and Takuma Sato, who of course triumphed in the Indianapolis 500 for a second time.
Even before the COVID crisis, my personal connection to Indy car racing had begun to fray after 45 years as a fan and a journalist. I was not credentialed for the 2019 or 2020 seasons, and this year was the first since 1992 that I did not work at an Indy car race in some kind of professional capacity. I kept an attendance streak dating to 1977 alive by watching the two Harvest GP races on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course from the grandstands.
I’d like to be at St. Pete this weekend; it’s a great city, the Grand Prix is a fine event, and I have fond memories of attending Spring Training baseball games in the region with my late father. But I can’t justify the time and the expense, especially after helping out IMSA at last weekend’s Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta.
Instead, I’ll watch from home. And honestly, with all the resources available to viewers today, watching from home isn’t much different than being a “press room journalist,” especially now that media availabilities are often handled on Zoom calls.
There’s no cheering in the press box, but since I’m not providing coverage, I’ll admit that I’m rooting for Dixon this weekend. I started covering his American career for New Zealand Speed Sport magazine in 1999, and he has been unfailingly courteous and considerate over more than 20 years. Scott and I share a connection through PacWest Racing (buy “Time Flies,” my history of the team HERE!) and he’s one of the most thoughtful and upstanding people I’ve been associated with in my professional career in motorsports.
It’s a no-lose situation for INDYCAR, because both title contenders have alredy proven to be worthy champions and fine ambassadors for the sport of Indy car racing.
