There are as many ways to win racing championships as there are drivers and teams. In the end, though, it boils down to the racers and the points-counters: those who believe that, if you win enough races, the championships will take care of themselves; and those who always seem to drive with one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the calculator.
Care to guess which is Scott Dixon's modus operandi? Hint, it dovetails with that of his Chip Ganassi Racing team, the squad whose alumni include such non-points-counters as Alex Zanardi and Juan Pablo Montoya. Small wonder, then, that after falling a thimbleful of ethanol short of the 2007 IndyCar Series title, Dixon looked not to last year's season finale but much, much earlier to see what cost him a second championship.
In effect, his failure to win a race before July had sealed his fate long before he ran out of fuel half a mile from the finish at Chicagoland Speedway.