Dixon Wins His 4th Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio  By Ted Rossino, Jr.
Photography: Ted Rossino, Jr.
Lexington, Ohio (Aug. 5, 2012)
Scott Dixon won his fourth overall and second race in a row in his Target Chip Ganassi Racing Honda at Mid Ohio Sports Car Course. He beat Will Power's Team Verizon Penske Chevrolet out of the pits on lap 57 and took the lead when, then leader James Hinchcliffe's Team, GoDaddy.com pitted on lap 59. He led the last 26 laps to take the checkered flag.
After qualifying 3rd and running 5th most of the day, Schmidt Hamilton HP Motorsports Honda driver Simon Pagenaud pitted a lap earlier on lap 56, which would lay the ground work to eventually achieve a third place finish. After the leaders pitted on lap 57, Pagenaud worked his way from 5th on lap 56 to 3rd on lap 62.
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 The average speed for the race was 115.379 miles per hour. The margin of victory between Dixon and Power was 3.4619 seconds. Power led the first 57 laps, fighting off Franchitti and Dixon all day before surrendering the lead during a pit stop.
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New points leader Will Power had this to say, "These are such tight pit boxes here and he (Dixon) had a clean in. We had a tight in so some of that was me getting in. It's hard for the fuel to get in clean because he has to step back from my wing to swing in. Still it's a very good points day. We're happy to get the Verizon car on the podium. We'll keep chasing after it, we'll get a win here soon and keep going after that championship."
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Race winner Scott Dixon said, "Well you know I think it definitely helped. We had an open pit, and Will had to come around us, and which I think if you look at the replay, I hit the marks before he even did. That's just how it goes now and then. Everyone thought we would be pitting at the exact same time and same place on the track, so I got a good in. The guys in the crew did a fantastic time plugging in the fuel and getting the tires changed, big credit to them. It's just one of those perfect moments. Got the jump on him out of the pits and the rest was certain." (On the points...) "Twenty-eight points is easy. We gained thirty odd points just on first place today. For us that's big momentum. Big momentum. We are going into three tracks that we can for sure do well at. And I think that we will do well at. We definitely have the crew to do it. Fingers crossed that we can be in the hunt and stay in the hunt until the last race."
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Third place finisher Simon Pagenaud had this to say, "We were close on fuel. I was saving heaps of fuel on that last stint to finish the race. The car was so good on the reds (tires). It was just awesome. It was a really good race, so thanks to the HP guys. We made a big, big step forward this weekend and it will be good for Sonoma."
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Sebastien Bourdais started seventh and worked his way up to a fourth place finish. The TrueCar Dragon Racing Chevrolet driver had this to say, "It was a really good run. The car was really fast. There was a lot of fuel saving, but we're pulling it off. I think we could have dared it a little bit more. Both times we could have made it a lot further, and I think that would have been the hot ticket. But, you don't want to be the last one out there if they pull out the yellow and close the pits for any reason. That was a good race, the car was good. We needed the points finish. As much as I wanted to be on the podium, we will take P4 any day."
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The next stop is the GoPro Indy® Grand Prix of Sonoma on August 24-26th.
Tickets can be bought at Sonoma website now.
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