Full Throttle

New Zealand driver Scott Dixon relished a return to oval track racing and duly won the Kansas Indy 300 Sunday afternoon. It was a remarkable return to form for the defending Indy Car series champion, who placed 16th and 15th through the first two rounds of the championship.

Those races on track circuits California and Florida were marred by technical problems but Dixon felt right at home at the high-speed circular venue which was struck by strong winds today.

It was Dixon’s 17th career win and 11th on an oval track and will be an enormous boost ahead of the defense of his Indy 500 crown at Indianapolis on May 25.

Even though he has previously stated a preference for track racing, Dixon has recorded six wins in his 12 starts on ovals and hasn’t finished lower than fourth.

He drove an error-free race today to head off Helio Castroneves by 0.7 seconds. Another Brazilian, Tony Kanaan, was third and inherits the series lead.

Dixon praised the work of his Target Chip Ganassi Racing team.

“You’ve got to hand it to hand it to the Target guys, they’ve done a fantastic job,” he told ESPN. “We made a few changes to the car and we were trimmed to win today. It definitely worked.

“We had to save fuel. Last year we lost this race by burning too much fuel. “We’ll take it, we’ve had two rough weekends.”

A key moment came in lap 155 of the 200-lap race when Dixon made a clean final pit stop during a confusing yellow flag period when the race had to be restarted.

Australian Ryan Briscoe lost his lead due to an unlucky quirk of the rules related to pit stop entry when a yellow flag is waved.

Starting at fourth on the grid, Dixon improved quickly to second before a slick inside move saw him pass pole sitter Graham Rahal in the ninth lap.

Dixon improves from 15th to fourth in the standings through three rounds behind, in order, Kanaan, Briscoe and Castroneves.

Dixon’s wife Emma was the happiest person at the packed Kansas City speedway.

“I’m so glad that he won today, he’s been grumpy for three weeks,” she said.