Dixon wins chaotic wet/dry race

As Dixon circled Watkins Glen International on the final lap on Sunday, spotter Glenn Wheeler radioed three words to his driver: "No pressure, Scott."

It was easy for him to say. Dixon lost traction briefly in Turn 7 on the final lap, causing the No. 9 Target Chip Ganassi Racing Honda/Dallara to twitch noticeably. But he gathered it up and carried it to the finish line, beating Meira by 2.3311 seconds and securing his second Watkins Glen win within nine months.

Ryan Briscoe, Dixon's teammate last year but now making a one-off appearance for Dreyer & Reinbold Racing as a road course specialist, finished third followed by Buddy Rice, the highest finisher on rain tires.

The bobble was one of many heart-skipping moments for Dixon, who said he narrowly avoided several other near-misses. "It probably looked a little worse than it was, just because you lose grip for an instant but then you know there's grip on the other side," Dixon said. "But it definitely worried me a little bit. It caught me by surprise."

Dixon's triumphant recovery validated a calculated but somewhat risky decision to stay on the track with slicks after a light rain began to fall. The crash-filled race had by then been given over to the time limit, and just 12 minutes remained. Dixon, Meira and Briscoe chose to stay out on slicks while others changed to rain tires. Thanks to a late yellow flag with just under four minutes left, Dixon was able to maintain the lead.

"It was so tough to know whether to come in for wets or not," Dixon said. "We were lucky that we were in a situation where whatever we did, the others were going to follow. I'm just glad that we made it. The weather threw everything at us today."

In total there were seven cautions in 55 laps. The race had been scheduled for 60 laps, but became a timed event due to all of the cautions under tricky wet-dry conditions. Four cars crashed out of the race and nine were involved in incidents. The field started on rain tires, then switched to slicks, and some went back to wets when a light rain began to fall late in the race.

"It was hard to know when to go for it because the track was wet in some areas and dry in others," Dixon said. "It would have been easy to throw the car away on slicks. It just snaps around on you. When the track got dry, the wets were so hard to drive on. You almost had to drive it at five-tenths. On the wets on a dry track, the harder you drove it, the less grip you had."

Fortunately, the late rain didn't persist, and Dixon was able to get enough grip out of the slicks to win the race. Only after the Turn 7 slip, when Wheeler told him the pressure was off, indicating that Meira was too far behind to challenge, did Dixon soft-pedal the car through the final turns and cruise to victory.

"After that turn, I was like, 'OK, it's time to slow down,'" said Dixon, who also won the IRL's first race at Watkins Glen last September. "I was a bit worried after that last bobble. I wasn't expecting it, but throughout the whole race, you had occurrences like that."

The most notable incident of the race involved the youngest and oldest drivers in the field. As Marco Andretti tried to pass Eddie Cheever Jr. on the right side heading into the ninth turn, the two cars collided, and Andretti skidded off into the fence.

"It was blatant, absolutely blatant," Andretti said. "It was absolutely on purpose."

Cheever, who also was criticized by Danica Patrick after her car spun out on a restart, said the Andretti incident was "bad circumstances."

Two other cars crashed out of the race - Jeff Simmons' and Kosuke Matsuura's - after tangling on the 12th lap. Patrick recovered from her incident to finish eighth. Rice, Patrick's Rahal Letterman Racing teammate, spun out without contact on the 16th lap, got going with help from corner workers, and rallied to the fourth-place finish.

Sam Hornish Jr., Tony Kanaan and Tomas Scheckter also spun out, seriously damaging what had been solid efforts. Kanaan and Scheckter both led segments of the race for a total of 20 laps.

Dan Wheldon was also out of luck, retiring with driveshaft failure during the final pit stops, having led much of the middle segment of the race.

The crashes and wet-dry dilemma at the finish made for an unusual box score after the race. Felipe Giaffone, who started last on the 19-car grid, finished fifth, followed by Ed Carpenter, who recorded the best finish of his IRL IndyCar Series career.

The biggest surprise may have been Briscoe, a one-race replacement for Buddy Lazier in the No. 5 Dreyer & Reinbold Honda/Dallara, which hadn't finished better than 12th in the first three races this season. Briscoe, who lost his ride last year with Ganassi after struggling on ovals during his rookie season, said he hopes the performance translates to something more permanent in either the IRL or the Champ Car World Series.

"I'm hoping it leads to something," Briscoe said. "That's certainly the goal."

Pos  Driver             Team               Make          Time
 1.  Scott Dixon        Ganassi            Panoz      55 laps
 2.  Vitor Meira        Panther            Dallara   + 2.3311
 3.  Ryan Briscoe       Dreyer & Reinbold  Dallara   + 2.7999
 4.  Buddy Rice         Rahal              Panoz     + 9.2284
 5.  Felipe Giaffone    Foyt               Dallara  + 11.4811
 6.  Ed Carpenter       Vision             Dallara  + 12.4427
 7.  Helio Castroneves  Penske             Dallara  + 13.0455
 8.  Danica Patrick     Rahal              Panoz    + 13.3289
 9.  Scott Sharp        Fernandez          Dallara  + 16.6462
10.  Tomas Scheckter    Vision             Dallara    + 1 lap
11.  Tony Kanaan        Andretti-Green     Dallara    + 1 lap
12.  Sam Hornish Jr     Penske             Dallara    + 1 lap
13.  Bryan Herta        Andretti-Green     Dallara    + 1 lap
14.  Dario Franchitti   Andretti-Green     Dallara  + 11 laps
15.  Dan Wheldon        Ganassi            Panoz    + 14 laps
16.  Marco Andretti     Andretti-Green     Dallara  + 17 laps
17.  Eddie Cheever Jr   Cheever            Dallara  + 18 laps
18.  Kosuke Matsuura    Fernandez          Dallara  + 36 laps
19.  Jeff Simmons       Rahal              Panoz    + 37 laps