Dixon rides the wind to victory in Kansas

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Scott Dixon Wins in Kansas

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Written by Scott Keller · FastMachines.com · April 27, 2009

Scott Dixon mastered the windy conditions at Kansas Speedway on Sunday to win the Road Runner Turbo Indy 300 in dominating fashion. Dixon rebounded strongly from two poor finishes at the street courses of St. Petersburg and Long Beach to give Target/Chip Ganassi racing a third straight win at the Kansas oval.

View Finishing Order: Kansas Speedway Race Results

“I think we were expecting the race to be a lot more difficult as far as the wind conditions in Turn 3 and 4 and maybe more cautions. The Target team was definitely talking about a lot of cautions and making sure we were saving fuel. All-in-all for me it was a pretty smooth race. We had a great car. We jumped straight to second then about ten laps later, we got Graham (Rahal) when he slid up the track a bit in Turn 3 and 4. We got out front and started saving fuel”, said Dixon.

“The Target car was really good all day. We had a bit of a fumble in the pits, which dropped us back to third at one point and made it quite difficult to get past (Ryan) Briscoe. I think we were trimmed to win as they say. The car was maybe not as good as it should have been in traffic. Luckily enough, we were saving enough fuel and caught the caution that catapulted us to the front.”

The victory on Sunday launched Dixon from deep in the points standing to fourth in the championship standings going into the Indianapolis 500 which he won last year.

Just ahead of Dixon in points is his teammate, Dario Franchitti, who had a tough day at Kansas. Franchitti started from the back of the field after qualifying second only to have his qualifying run disallowed for crossing below the white line on one of his passes. Franchitti charged to the front, and was quickly running with the leaders. Franchitti’s day was cut short when he avoided a slowing Graham Rahal and crashed out of the race with 50 to go.

After the race Franchitti said, “Graham (Rahal) just stopped in front of me coming into the pits. That’s one of the places you can make up time, coming in and out (of the pits) and he just braked hard and we were just sort of feathering the brake. I got on the brakes hard when I saw him just stop, and flat spotted both fronts, punctured them and had no steering or front grip after that. It caught me by surprise how early he broke. We were running sixth gear there and he was hard on the brakes.”

Helio Castroneves put on a show for the fans, racing his way from the back row to a second place finish. However, Helio was involved in an incident where he ran into the back of Vitor Meira that made that race to the front even more impressive.

“Through the whole race, slowly but surely my rhythm was coming back for those things. As you can see at the beginning, I was just trying to let everything sort itself out. I don’t know who is who here. I don’t know the colors of the car, still unfamiliar to me”, said Castroneves. “And Dario probably took the same direction as well, until we got a little issue. I think that’s racing issue. There was nothing I could do. I was just suddenly hitting Vitor on the back. I was not expecting to do that. He might have had some problem because he braked or lifted off. But other than that, towards the end, I was back in shape.”

Tony Kanaan took third spot, and the point lead at Kansas. Kanaan hasn’t shown spectacular speed in 2009, but has been very consistent. Fellow Andretti-Green drivers Danica Patrick, Marco Andretti, and Hideki Mutoh all had good finishes as well, finishing fifth, sixth, and eights respectively.

Graham Rahal started from the pole position, and posted his best ever oval finish of seventh. But Rahal was disappointed because his race strategy was hampered by a closed pit that was caused when Franchitti crashed to avoid a pitting Rahal late in the race.

“It was a disappointing day for the McDonald’s guys. I fell like we just can’t get any breaks in the race this year. The yellow came out right when we had to pit so we had to come into a closed pit for a splash of fuel and it cost us four spots. We just can’t get any luck and unfortunately that is what is killing our chance to finish well right now,” said Rahal.

Ed Carpenter showed that he is an “oval guy”, and finshed ninth at Kansas after some poor showings at the opening two street races of the year.

Sarah Fisher ran her first race in 2009, and posted a respectable 13th place finish. Fisher ran the race as a tune-up for the Indy 500, and is looking forward to the 93rd running. “This is a good place for us to start,” said Fisher. “We’re in a much better place than we were when the truck rolled in to the track. Having seat time in Kansas has given me the confidence I’m going to need for Indy. It’s a good thing. Instead of sitting here saying, ‘where do we start?’, we now have a benchmark race under our belt.”

The 93rd running of the Indianapolis 500 race is up next for Indy Car. The track action begins on May 5th with Rookie Orientation.