Dixon hails dominant weekend, donates to Wilson Children’s Fund

Chip Ganassi Racing’s outgoing champion, led 50 laps on his way to a dominant win, and also led every session around the 3.37-mile track this weekend. Asked if it was his most dominant victory, the four-time IndyCar champ said: “It's probably close to it, yeah, for a road course. I know we've had some dominant weekends like this at ovals… and Mid-Ohio we've had something close to this.

“But I think to lead all three practices, warmup, qualifying on pole, and then win the race… I think TK [teammate Tony Kanaan] actually got fast lap in the race – I'll talk to him about that later!


“It was definitely a very dominant weekend, but I think when you're in those weekends, too, your mind is just running crazy with possibilities and things that could go wrong, especially in the race.”

However, Dixon said it didn’t make up for the win he lost on strategy in Toronto, when the yellows flew just before he pitted, handing the win to Will Power.

Said Dixon: “You always think about those ones more than some of the victories that you get, just because of the sheer fact that you thought you were so close to getting it.


“Toronto was a tough one. We'd been bitten by that [at Toronto] on the #9 car side three or four times throughout my career, and we had spoken about it before the race. I think that's what made it a little bit harder to swallow.


“I think Mike [Hull, team director] called a perfect race this weekend. It's so hard, you can't equate for a yellow coming out when they do, and today we were on the other side of it. We were like, hey, we're going to pit as soon as we can. As soon as these [pit] windows open up, we're going to take care of ourselves and make sure if we lose out a little bit, so be it. At least we're not going to go to the mid-pack or back of the field and have to fight our way through.



“As you saw today, we pitted a lap pretty much before anybody else, and we had a caution a lap later [for Mikhail Aleshin’s shunt], and that's just how these races can flip. It's tough to swallow when it's on the other side.

  

Thoughts of Justin Wilson

From Victory Lane, Dixon announced he was to donate his weekend’s winnings to the Wilson Children’s Fund, which was set up to benefit Jane and Jessica Wilson, daughters of the late Justin Wilson.

“A year going on since the loss of Justin, being back at Pocono [where Wilson perished] just recently, and obviously talking to Jules and seeing the family – this was a place that Justin really loved.

“Last time we had a good battle here in 2009, he kicked my butt! It's a place that he got his first win in the combined IndyCar [Wilson had four wins in Champ Car] and it was Dale Coyne's first and was definitely a milestone.

“So I was thinking about Justin a lot this weekend.

Obviously with the launch of the Wilson Children's Fund, then the new website and all that stuff, I just thought – Emma and myself and our family could donate our winnings from this weekend.”

Pole position earned Dixon $10,000 and his victory added a further $30,000 to the pot.