Dixon, a soft-spoken thinker from Auckland, New Zealand, beat the field out of the pits during the final caution of Indianapolis 500 and held off a couple of minor challenges over the final laps in winning the biggest race in the world.
The guy they call The Iceman thawed just a bit as he took his victory lap, then took a postrace celebratory lap in a convertible sports car and arrived at victory circle.
“It’s such a strange feeling,” said Dixon, an IndyCar series champion in 2003 but never a winner of the 500, “and for me, I don’t show emotions too much. It’s almost like you’re in dreamland. It’s something you sort of expect somebody to maybe pinch you and you wake up and you’re sleeping in your bed back home. It feels so special.”
The margin of the special victory was a healthy 1.7 seconds.
For some of the drivers Dixon beat, it felt right that they were not able to beat him. The best man won, they said.
“He earned that one, for sure,” Marco Andretti, who finished third, said of Dixon.
“I just couldn’t believe it,” Dixon said as his wife, Emma, showered kisses on him. “There were so many yellows there it was hard to get into a rhythm.
“I was trying to save fuel and the car had a little too much drag on it, but as long as we got a good jump on those guys on the restart, I could stay up front.”
Handed the traditional bottle of milk in victory lane, Dixon took a swig and splashed his colleagues.
Patrick, who last month became the first woman to win an IndyCar race, saw her bid to become the first female winner of the Indy 500 end in a pit lane collision.
Patrick was leaving pit lane when Australia’s Ryan Briscoe, who had started from the front row, lost control of his car while pulling out.
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