IndyCar Series: Peak Antifreeze & Motor Oil Indy 300

Topics:  Peak Antifreeze & Motor Oil Indy 300

Scott Dixon
September 6, 2008

JOLIET, ILLINOIS

THE MODERATOR: We'll get started with our post-qualifying press conference. We have Ryan Briscoe and Helio Castroneves joining us shortly. Right now we're joined by Scott Dixon, starting on the outside of the front row, the ninth front row starting position for Scott this season. Scott, I guess talk about your run there and then maybe talk a little bit about tomorrow.
SCOTT DIXON: It was pretty good, actually. I was a little surprised we qualified so far up. I think our car was good this morning, but it's been really quick in race trim. The car has been really good coming up. Straight up speed, it looked like TK and Briscoe were definitely quicker than us this morning. When you find yourself in new cars and then doing qualifying, we kind of knew that was going to play out. I was a little shocked that TK didn't go quicker, and obviously Danica was pretty close, as well. All in all, I think we're pretty happy. I just wanted to qualify in the top five, definitely stay close to Helio.
He tried some tricky stuff in qualifying, so I don't know what's going to happen there. But it was generally a pretty good day.

Q. When you said tricky stuff, did you mean below the white line?
SCOTT DIXON: Yeah, definitely. Before we go out in qualifying, we always say, just keep it above the white line and the drivers knew the same thing. What are you going to do about that? They never said what type of penalty there is for it. Anyway, it doesn't really matter I don't think to be honest.

Q. Now that we've had all this big buildup going into tomorrow, you seem like you're pretty relaxed and ready to go. Any thoughts at this point about just getting it over with, finally getting to the race?
SCOTT DIXON: Yeah, I wish we were going out there right now to be honest. I was feeling like last week was the last race or something like that. It's definitely been dragged on for the last few races. I think definitely Detroit was definitely disappointing in the fact that it was a fast car and we got the pole and we just didn't make good on the deal. No, I definitely guess I'm anxious to get in the car, get on the racetrack. One way or another, I want to win this one. I know it's been a long year, and to top it off with a championship would be fantastic and the ultimate.

Q. In order to win the championship, what's going to be your strategy? Are you just going to keep it all together? It looks like you can make it to the finish.
SCOTT DIXON: No, we're going for the win. It would be nice to go out and win, but I know exactly what he wants to do. We want to go for that record-breaking seventh win of the season, which would be fantastic. That's what it comes down to. We're here to do one thing and that's race. I'm going to do anything similar to that, so we're going to keep doing what we've been doing all season. I think we've got a car that can win. It's going to be very tough on straight-on speed, but I think just coming down to the wire, I think our car is going to be really strong.

Q. You said earlier today on the line that you thought that Ryan was going to be the guy to beat. What made you think that?
SCOTT DIXON: You know, we can always pull all kinds of things off of the timing and scoring things, and there's different calculations you can set up to see what cars have tows and don't have tows, and straight up, he was definitely quicker than us throughout the day.
Same with TK. TK, I think, they didn't quite get what their car was capable of this morning. Second is a pretty good day for us.
THE MODERATOR: Scott, we appreciate your time. Good luck tomorrow.