With a blazing 231.685 miles per hour four-lap average, reigning IndyCar Series champion Scott Dixon won the coveted pole for Sunday’s Indianapolis 500 and will lead the 33-car field to green at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He won by just .03 miles per hour at the end of the two-day qualifying process.
It’s his fourth Indy 500 pole after also winning it in 2017, 2015 and 2008 — when he won the iconic race from his No. 1 starting spot. And although the 40-year-old Chip Ganassi Racing driver said winning the Indy 500 pole is one of the most challenging things to do, he knows it promises nothing about the race itself.
“It’s obviously the best starting position,” Dixon told For The Win. “But unfortunately, it doesn’t guarantee you anything. It doesn’t even guarantee going into the first corner first.”
Ahead of the 2021 Indy 500, For The Win spoke with the six-time IndyCar champ about his pole win, the magic of the Indy 500 itself and what kind of milk he hopes he’s celebrating with Sunday afternoon.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
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Most of us can’t fathom what it’s like to drive at 231 miles an hour. Can you describe what that genuinely feels like?
The hardest part for us is the is the fact that you did it the day before [in Saturday’s qualifying round], but you had 24 hours to sit on it, and you never actually go out in the car until that happens again. And the process is now that you’re holding the car off on your out lap, so your first lap out is kind of slow. You don’t really feel the car until you turn the boost up, you go around, down the backstraight [into] Turns 3 into 4, and then you’re going in to Turn 1 at 240-plus miles now.
And your mind is telling your foot to stay flat and to keep it flat through the corner, but you have human instincts, right? Like, this could be a pretty big crash or a big moment, and whether you come out the other side in one piece, So, mentally, it’s very tough.
It’s a crazy lead up to this race. The race for pole is such an event in itself that, you know, it’s something that the team wants to do. … It’s really nerve-racking. Emotionally, it’s crazy. It’s one of the toughest things. And I think unfortunately, being a veteran of the sport, having done it for so long, it hasn’t got any better. I was so nervous on Saturday, and then on Sunday, I was so nervous.
RETWEET TO CONGRATULATE @ScottDixon9 on his #Indy500 pole!
He'll lead the field to green Sunday at 11A ET on @NBC. #MustBeMay pic.twitter.com/38yfo85nKy
— NBC Sports (@NBCSports) May 23, 2021
In the moment right before the Indy 500 is about to go green, what’s going through your mind in that moment?
Typically, after that long week of just talking about the race, you have these slight premonitions like, “We’re gonna do this, that person’s gonna do that.” For me, it’s actually really nice to get in the car. You kind of by yourself, you kind of feel at home. That hype is right there, and I think for all of us, you’re just wanting to get into that race and get it over and done with, to be honest.
The start is tricky. It can be tricky. But if you start near the front, it should be pretty calm. So you’re just wanting to get into the cycle of the race. And it’s never won in the first corner, so you want to be somewhat cautious but also aggressive at the same time.
In the 2017, Indy 500, you were in a terrifying crash, and thankfully, you were OK. But when when something like that happens, does it impact your mindset at all when you return to Indianapolis Motor Speedway for this race?
That one was definitely spectacular, for sure. You try to forget about those things, but unfortunately, they get played on the video boards continuously, and you see the crash a lot. But I think for drivers, when it’s a crash like that, it was just by chance, right?
There was a slower car, it got into trouble, I had nowhere to go, and it was big and spectacular. But for drivers, it’s more if you lose the control of the car yourself, and you spin the car out or you make a mistake. Those are the ones that linger a lot more. That was that was a big crash, and lucky to only walk away with fractured ankle at that point.
But we’re very lucky to be in this year of IndyCar racing and the safety compared to the ’50, ’60s and ’70s. It’s safer in general, but we can still see some crazy things happen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QiAj5oOfz4
If you could add one track to the IndyCar schedule that’s not already on it, what what track would it be?
Oh, that’s a hard one. In North America, probably Watkins Glen [International]. I’d love to go back to upstate New York. And then internationally, I think it’d be fun as well to go back to Surfers Paradise in Australia. That was always my ideal event for IndyCar racing.
And if you were to win the Indy 500, what would be your preferred milk choice?
I think in the early days, you could actually pick strawberry, pick chocolate. I’m a big chocolate fan, so I would pick chocolate, but now they I think it’s only skim, 2 percent or full. … I’ll go for the 2 percent. I like the 2 percent. That’s what I have with my cereal.
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