Dixon Continues Title March With Kentucky Victory
Source: Honda
Aug 11, 2008 - 8:26:23 AM
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Scott Dixon and his Target Chip Ganassi Racing team continued to steamroll their
IndyCar Series opposition Saturday night at Kentucky Speedway, winning a
record-tying sixth race as his major championship rival – Team Penske’s Helio
Castroneves – gambled on an alternative fuel strategy and lost, running out of
ethanol on the last lap. Dixon swept past while exiting Turn Four to take the
checkers in a “role reversal” of the final race of 2007, when it was Dixon
running out of fuel on the last lap at Chicagoland Speedway and Dario Franchitti
passing for the race win and ’07 series championship.
Dixon’s win was his sixth of 2008, tying the IndyCar Series record set by
teammate Dan Wheldon in his 2005 championship-winning season while driving for
Andretti Green Racing.
Castroneves coasted across the finish line in
second to keep his championship hopes alive with three races remaining. Marco
Andretti led 38 laps prior to finishing third, gaining two positions in the
drivers’ championship. Panther Racing’s Vitor Meira led five laps and ran in the
lead pack throughout the night, but fell back on the last round of pit stops to
finish fourth.
Driveline problems, including transmission failure and
broken axles, sidelined several competitors in the race, and a Honda Indy V-8
engine aboard Enrique Bernoldi’s Conquest Racing machine was destroyed by
foreign matter in the oil system during practice on Friday. But 26 drivers
completed another 10,977 miles during the course of the two-day event without
failure. So far this season, the IndyCar field has completed 195,135 miles
without a single race-day failure, a record for Honda since the manufacturer
started supplying the entire IndyCar field in 2006.
Behind the lead
quartet, Wheldon and Andretti Green Racing’s Tony Kanaan put on perhaps the best
show of the evening, running side-by-side for more than two dozen laps from Lap
150 – 175. The battle came to an end when Kanaan and Ryan Hunter-Reay appeared
to touch, with both dropping back as a result. Wheldon went on to finish fifth.
Kanaan and Hunter-Reay finished eighth and ninth, respectively, with 2004 Indy
500 winner Buddy Rice rounding out the top 10 for Dreyer & Reinbold
Racing.
The IndyCar Series now takes a final, one-week break before
resuming for the final three consecutive race weekends, starting with IndyCar
Grand Prix of Sonoma at Infineon Raceway in northern California on August
24.
Scott Dixon (#9 Target Chip Ganassi Racing Honda)
Started 1st, finished 1st, his record-tying sixth IndyCar Series win of 2008;
16th career win; extended his IndyCar championship points lead to 78 over Helio
Castroneves with three races remaining:
"I think that when it’s your
year, things just seem to go your way – like they did [July 12] at Nashville and
here tonight. There was some good racing with Marco [Andretti] tonight. Then it
was crazy at the end. Helio [Castroneves] made it very hard to pass, but then he
slowed going into [Turn] Three. It definitely was a role reversal from Chicago
last year [when Dixon ran out of fuel on the last lap and was passed by Dario
Franchitti for the race win and championship]. Dario called me in Victory Circle
and I told him the [passing] view was definitely better! This is a fantastic day
for us. Our championship lead is pretty healthy, but anything can happen in a
race and there are still three to go.”
Helio
Castroneves (#3 Team Penske Honda) Started 6th, finished 2nd, his 7th runner-up
finish of 2008:
“I really don’t know what I have to do [to win a
race] this year. Honestly. We took a big gamble [with the fuel strategy]. I
tried everything, the team tried everything, but it seems like second place is
our destiny this year. The fuel light came on with a couple of laps to go, so we
came up just a little bit short [of fuel]. But we’re not giving up. We’re
working really, really hard and there are still three races to go. Let’s see
what happens at [the next race at] Sonoma.”
Jack
Spurney (General Manager, Honda Performance Development) on tonight’s race:
“It was another impressive performance by Scott Dixon and the Target
Chip Ganassi team, capping another nearly perfect weekend for them. This really
does seem to be their year. There was a good crowd here tonight, and I think
they saw an exciting race. Now, our HPD race team gets a welcome, one-week break
before the final three races on consecutive
weekends.”
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IRL IndyCar Series
Round 14: Kentucky Speedway,
Kentucky
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| 1 |
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Scott Dixon (Target Chip Ganassi) |
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| 2 |
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Helio Castroneves (Team Penske) |
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| 3 |
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Marco Andretti (Andretti Green Racing) |
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| 4 |
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Vitor Meira (Panther Racing) |
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| 5 |
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Dan Wheldon (Target Chip Ganassi) |
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| 6 |
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Ed Carpenter (Vision Racing) |
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| 7 |
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Ryan Briscoe (Team Penske) |
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| 8 |
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Tony Kanaan (Andretti Green Racing) |
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| 9 |
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Ryan Hunter-Reay (Rahal Letterman Racing) |
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| 10 |
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Buddy Rice (Dreyer & Reinbold Racing) |
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| 11 |
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Danica Patrick (Andretti Green Racing) |
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| 12 |
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Oriol Servia (KV Racing Technologies) |
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| 13 |
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E.J. Viso (HVM Racing) |
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| 14 |
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Bruno Junqueira (Dale Coyne Racing) |
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| 15 |
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Sarah Fisher (Sarah Fisher Racing) |
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| 16 |
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Jaime Camara (Conquest Racing) |
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| 17 |
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Mario Moraes (Dale Coyne Racing) |
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| 18 |
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Hideki Mutoh (Andretti Green Racing) |
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| 19 |
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Darren Manning (A.J. Foyt Racing) |
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| 20 |
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A.J. Foyt IV (Vision Racing) |
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| 21 |
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Milka Duno (Dreyer & Reinbold Racing) |
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| 22 |
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Enrique Bernoldi (Conquest Racing) |
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| 23 |
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Marty Roth (Roth Racing) |
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| 24 |
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Justin Wilson (Newman Haas Lanigan) |
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| 25 |
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Graham Rahal (Newman Haas Lanigan) |
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| 26 |
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Will Power (KV Racing Technologies) |
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