Kiwi motorsport superstar Scott Dixon with wife Emma. Photo / Photosport
New Zealand’s most successful motorsport export to the USA talks to Andrew Potter about his longevity and how he gets extra drive from defeat.
“I couldn’t give two s***s what people think, to be honest.”
Scott Dixon is on the line, and we’re getting a thorny question out of the way. How does New Zealand’s most consistently successful racing driver feel about turning 45 in July, and being labelled an age-defying peculiarity of top-level motorsport?
“It’s not something that bothers me,” he tells the Herald.
“I’m kind of indifferent [to] it, you know? I totally get it, I get that I’m a veteran of the sport. [But] it’s something I love and I continue to love. Hopefully, I can decide when I choose to leave, two years from now, five years from now, 10 years from now, who knows?”
Dixon’s accent is still unmistakably Kiwi but his phrases are sprinkled with “you know”, and other laidback Americanisms – a tell-tale sign of a guy who has spent well over half his life living and racing in the United States.
This season marks his 25th year racing at the top level of American open-wheel motorsport.
He was just 20 when he started his first of two seasons in the CART series, before moving to IndyCars in 2003. With six championships, 57 wins and an Indy 500 victory – not to mention numerous sportscar titles – Dixon’s continued success is largely taken for granted in New Zealand. But he’s still near the top of his game after all these years, and what’s more remarkable, all but one season of his American journey has been with the same team.
The Herald recently visited the IndyCar season-opener in St Petersburg, Florida. On race morning, fans wearing the blue-and-orange colours of Dixon’s No 9 Chip Ganassi Racing car crowded around the team’s trucks, waiting to get a glimpse of the South Aucklander. Dixon popped briefly into view after morning warm-up, signing a few bits of memorabilia before disappearing inside the motorhome for final preparations.
During the race he was just ahead of a massive first-lap crash, made an early tyre stop, then ran mid-pack before stealthily surging forward late to take a strong second place to his teammate, Alex Palou.
As the trophies were being handed out, Dixon looked visibly frustrated and it was only then he revealed he’d driven the race without a fully functioning radio, depriving him of a vital tool in working out strategy with the team. The lack of communication meant he stopped for tyres a lap later than Palou, handing the Spanish driver the win.
Radio glitch aside, it’s a classic Dixon race. You’d barely notice he’s there until he sneaks up and mugs the field to challenge for victory.
“It was a failure of a bracket that led to a sequence of other things that happened,” said Dixon, of the radio problem. “Ultimately, it wasn’t a win, which is the frustrating part, especially when I think it would have been an easy one, had we had communication.”
Dixon finished 10th in the second round at the Thermal Club in California in the next race weekend, with Palou winning again.
Getting fuel mileage no other driver can manage, and scoring points consistently throughout the season, has been a hallmark of Dixon’s championships to date. But his 2024 campaign was blighted by uncharacteristic technical problems and, occasionally, being taken out by rivals. There can’t be a repeat, because the IndyCar series is tighter than it’s ever been.
“Most of the championship competitors at this point, you kind of have one or maybe two bad races [per season],” he said. “If you look at the 10 car [Palou], they’ve almost had zero bad races the last couple years, which makes it pretty tough, you know?”
Palou, 27, has won three IndyCar championships in the past four years for Ganassi (Dixon’s most recent was in 2020). As Dixon pushes well into middle age, defeat serves as motivational fuel. He won the Indianapolis 500 once, in 2008, but remembers the five times he’s been on the podium more keenly, most of all in 2020, when Japanese driver Takuma Sato only won because of a late-race caution.
“For me, [motivation comes from] getting beat. I think that’s what keeps the fire strong,” he said. “Unfortunately, you think about those way more than you think about the victories.”
Dixon has been employed since 2002 by no-nonsense American Chip Ganassi. Such is the strength of their relationship, that Dixon says his original employment contract is still in place, with additional amendments added each time the pair decide to extend the deal.
“It’s just kind of rolled [over], honestly. I think I’m on [contract] amendment No 11 or something. Normally, it’s just a quick conversation. He’ll be like ‘hey, you want to do it for another year? Or you want to do it for another two?’ I think, maybe, at one point in my whole career, we really talked about numbers. You know, that’s kind of how it goes.”
Dixon had a window of opportunity to reach the pinnacle of motorsport in 2004, when he tested twice for the Williams Formula 1 team. F1 has always been fickle, as Red Bull Racing’s dreadful treatment of Liam Lawson has shown. Dixon is philosophical that his shot at F1 ultimately went nowhere.
“Definitely a fun car to drive,” remembers Dixon of the distinctive walrus-nosed FW26. “The option was maybe to be a test driver. [I’d] just won my first championship in IndyCar … [so] definitely no regrets. Did I make the wrong decision? No ... in F1, you know, it’s still a crazy sport, man, with some crazy cars – but I enjoy the racing I got right now.”
Which takes us back to that question of age.
Dixon’s longtime IndyCar rival, Australian Will Power, turned 44 at the start of the month. Brazilian Helio Castroneves will have hit 50 when he tries to win the Indy 500 for a record fifth time in May. Over in Formula 1, Fernando Alonso turns 44 in July. Michael Schumacher was 43 when he called it quits a second time.
For Dixon, any thought of retirement is tied purely to his own performance, rather than the number of candles on his birthday cake.
“I think not being competitive is probably the first thing, you know? I’ve got a lot of lots of friends that have retired and … a lot of those people kind of regret doing it. I think it’s a pure luxury to, you know, do something that you actually, really, really love. There will be a point, you know, for me, if you’re just getting your arse kicked, then, you know, you don’t want to continuously do that, that’s for sure.
“I enjoy getting pushed constantly. And you know, for me it burns stronger and brighter than it ever has been.”
Scott Dixon remains one of the fittest drivers on the IndyCar grid. He splits his time between the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand. Here’s how he trains:
“I love running, man. For me, the best thing is trail running. There’s so many good spots in New Zealand. Whether you go to the beach or whether you go from my parents’ place in East Auckland. You can run back up into the hills. Even if it’s downtown … you know, just running along, by the Auckland CBD, to Mission Bay.
“I run with my wife [former Great Britain 800m representative] Emma sometimes, especially on vacation. She’s not always fun to run with as she’s pretty damn quick. So is our daughter [Tilly] now, unfortunately!
“How has my training changed since I started my career? That’s kind of hard to answer because training’s evolved so much. I’d say output-wise, probably better in a lot of areas.
“With my training, you keep the basics the same – but they’re always evolving. Whether it’s better ways to cognitively train, vision train, your high-intensity stuff, your cardio stuff, or weights in the off-season. You’re always trying to refine it and make it a little bit better. Some stay pretty stagnant just because they work for you.
“I’d say I feel as good – if not better – now than I did [when I started at 20], just because you have a better idea of the areas that you need to cover. Whether it’s on the physical side, to the eye-training things that we do now, to mindset, or feeling more in the zone. I think now is a lot easier to prepare, just because you’ve done it for so long. It’s just making sure that it’s not boring.
“I’ve been working with a good friend, Simon Curran, who works with All Blacks on mindset and strategy, which has been quite refreshing in some ways, especially from a totally different sport. I’ve been spending quite a bit of time with them in the off-season and going to a few of their games, it’s quite fun.
“Looking at what they do training-wise, you know, whether it’s a visual kind of thing, or conditioning, and things like that, obviously I’m not a rugby player, so it would be totally different, but it’s always nice to see some refreshing ways of what they do, whether it’s even you know, pre-prep or warm-up sequences and things like that.”
A man is in an induced coma after a crash in Christchurch last night.