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Dixon's Day
By Andrew Cutler May 26 2008
There were many capable challengers who took their turn at the front of the pack on Sunday but, at the end of the day, it was the man who started on pole who found himself back in the lead. New Zealand's Scott Dixon is now an Indianapolis 500 winner.

The race started with Dixon & his Target Chip Ganassi Racing teammate, Dan Wheldon (the '05 Indy winner) leading the field for the early going, with Andretti-Green's Tony Kanaan & Team Penske's Helio Castroneves in pursuit. Scott & Dan would trade the lead back & forth, with Tony occasionally sticking his car out in front.

Helio's day would come close to unravelling when he ran over debris from Marty Roth's one-car wreck, which damaged his front wing. After effecting repairs, he would climb back into the top ten, eventually finishing fourth. Tony Kanaan would crash out while leading just past the half-way mark in an incident that also collected Sarah Fisher's car. In the meantime, the handling on Wheldon's car would turn ugly, and Dan would fade back to finish in 12th spot.

With Helio, TK and Dan out of the picture, new challengers would arise to fight with Scott. Vision Racing's Ed Carpenter would briefly take the lead until a pit-stop gaff would ruin his chances (he would finish in 5th spot). TK's teammate Marco Andretti would lead twice and finish in third spot.

But Dixon's biggest challenger in the later stages would prove to be Vitor Meira from the one car Pather Racing operation. Meira would would pull off a gutsy pass on Dixon and Carpenter during a restart on lap 160 and lead for 11 laps. Dixon would get him back on lap 172 but Vitor would hang in there just behind Scott for the rest of the race.

The victory is Dixon's twelfth overall in his IndyCar career & the Ganassi's 2nd Indy 500 victory: the first was with Juan Pablo Montoya in 2000.

"It's such a strange feeling, and for me, I don't show emotions too much," Dixon said afterwards.  "It's almost like you're in a dreamland. It feels so special. I think the parade lap and seeing everybody still out there yelling your name was something that I wish I had witnessed previous to now. But it makes you want to go and win this race once again."

Here is a link to the full driver results table:

http://www.indy500.com/images/pdf/20080525-indy.pdf

Here is a link to my pics from the race:

http://indyandy.wordpress.com/08-pics-2/  

 

      

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