FEATURE STORY, INDYCAR »

Scott Dixon has proven to be one of auto racing’s all-time greats. (Photo courtesy of INDYCAR)

By Jonathan Ingram |Senior Writer
RacinToday.com

Will it make any difference in the eyes of fans if Scott Dixon claims his sixth IndyCar championship on the St. Petersburg street and airport course this weekend? That would pull him within one of tying A.J. Foyt’s seven titles. Should he win his 51st career race as well, he’d be within one victory of Mario Andretti’s career total.

But just as the ever-smooth Jimmie Johnson, who succeeded Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt as a seven-time NASCAR champion, Dixon is a very different character from the legends of IndyCar who preceded him. Despite all the success on track, there’s a running debate on whether Dixon belongs in the same pantheon as IndyCar racing’s other statistical leaders.

Comparing him to Foyt and Andretti (which leaves out the Unser brothers and Rick Mears, among others, in the modern era), Dixon is no doubt different. But just as with my view of Johnson in NASCAR, it’s the smoothness and consistency on the track, which now includes an impressive record by Dixon in GT and sports prototypes, that counts most.

Foyt and Andretti were outsized characters in the golden era of modern motor racing, which helped make competitors seem larger than life. They drove all manner of cars at a time when technical advances made racing more dangerous and when television and the print media’s major outlets, which enjoyed increasingly larger footprints, shed bright, hallowing light on the sound and fury that was the Indy 500, Monaco, Le Mans and Daytona.  

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