Beyond the Cockpit: Scott Dixon Confident in IndyCar’s Future, Reflects on Cadillac IMSA Days

In the world of the NTT IndyCar Series, Scott Dixon needs no introduction. Quite simply, he is the best driver to debut after 1970. In 402 combined starts between CART and IndyCar, Dixon has 58 career victories, finished on the podium 142 times and has six championships.

Sports car racing has traditionally been a side job for Dixon, but he has five career WeatherTech victories and enjoys it immensely. Dixon joined Frontstretch‘s Phil Allaway at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta, where they talked about his IndyCar season, thoughts on the Cadillac and hybrid in the series and more.

Phil Allaway, Frontstretch: I wanted to get your idea of just how much IMSA has grown over the past few years from the outlook of someone who isn’t a regular.

Scott Dixon: To be honest, it kind of goes in waves. I think when I first came to the series, the fields were big, but it was a very different car with Grand-Am. [The Daytona Prototypes] were fairly basic, but they were fun to drive. They had a sequential gearbox and all that kind of stuff whereas today, [the cars] are very technical, especially with the hybrid addition.

It’s interesting to be a part of these programs because there’s so many areas that you can fine tune, or even when you’re driving. It’s a lot of fun. Right now, the competition level’s through the roof, which is always fun to be part of.

Allaway: You’ve had experience in GT cars, regular prototypes and hybrid prototypes, three very different types of cars to drive. How does the Cadillac VSeries.R compare to some of the previous cars that you’ve driven?

Dixon: I think they’re all different. Sometimes, when you’re been in the sport for a little while, you actually enjoy the earlier days, when there weren’t so many aids like traction control, paddle shifting, even automatic shifting in some things.

I really enjoyed the early 2000s to the late 2000s. [Today’s action] is a totally different level of racing, next level over IndyCar as far as the technical side and engineering front, which is very special to be a part of.

I think for me, it obviously doesn’t matter as long as you’re winning or you’ve got a shot at winning and trying to be at the front, which Cadillac has done a good job of over the year.

Allaway: Speaking of winning, you’re coming off your 24^th season in IndyCar. You won two races on street courses and finished sixth in points. How would you describe your season?

Dixon: It started well. I think up until the midway portion, we were leading the championship, even with some mishaps. Then we had trouble at Barber [Motorsports Park], the tire failure at Road America. We had the hybrid issue we had at Mid-Ohio [Sports Car Course] and crashed out at Portland [International Raceway]. There’s a ton of races that really put us in a hole.

Performance-wise [and] car speed, we were really good. Just a frustrating year with the difficulties we had with DNFs and big failures throughout. It makes the fire burn harder.

I’m really looking forward to next year, but to go 19 or 20 years consecutively with a win is pretty special [along with] the all-time podiums [record] for IndyCar with Mario [Andretti] was pretty cool as well. It was a strong year, but we want to win.

Allaway: Anytime you’re in the conversation with that man is a good time.

Dixon: There’s been a lot of that lately, which is pretty special. He’s a good friend and a great advocate for our sport. Obviously, he raced in a lot of different categories throughout the years and was always a winner and a champion. To be mentioned alongside him is very special.

Allaway: This year saw the debut of the hybrid system in IndyCar. How does it work under those circumstances, and what do you think of it?

Dixon: There have been some tricky parts to it. It’s a lot of work for the driver. It’s not like Formula E, where you’re regening and deploying and don’t have gears to change. It’s manual, very different to IMSA, where [the hybrid deployment] is quite automated on the back side.

For me, it’s definitely been a challenge. It’s something that’s part of the sport and you have to adapt to it. I think changes along the way are a lot of fun the first couple of seasons when you get them.

Allaway: Recently, the new Grand Prix of Arlington was announced for 2026 that will be around AT&T Stadium and Globe Life Field. Do you have any thoughts on it?

Dixon: I’m excited. It’s a demographic and an area that is huge for us. I think to have the partner that [IndyCar] does with those organizations is huge. It’s a great way to go into that race for the first time.

For a street course, it’s kind of a long track. The straights are very long, so I expect the racing to be fantastic. I’d say that the only downside is that we wish it was for 2025, so we’ll have to wait another year. There’s definitely some more big announcements coming out in the next few months for IndyCar, which is huge. Going to some new tracks, or revisiting some old tracks. Looking forward to that. It’s going to be a lot of fun.

Allaway: As a veteran IndyCar driver, where you feel that the sport is right now, growth-wise? Teams are up with 27 cars for a lot of the season, you’ve got the new charter system coming in. Where does the series go from here?

Dixon: Hopefully up. It’s definitely been in a building phase. There’s been a lot of things going on behind the scenes. Obviously, COVID, for a lot of people, [caused a lot of change]. For IndyCar, there was also a change of ownership, as well.

As long as they keep building on these new venues, we need to get to more tracks, we need to get to some new ones, some better circuits. I think that’s definitely going to happen.

Obviously, the partnership with FOX is going to be huge. With sponsorship, car count and the charter system, it’s going to be difficult to add any more now. But there’s a lot of teams that want to be involved, so it’ll be interesting to see how that plays out in the future.

Allaway: There are 25 charters, right?

Dixon: Yes, 25 charters that are locked in. The top 22 get the Leaders Circle money, so there will be a couple of different races going on each year for the championship points and who can qualify each weekend if you get more than 27.

Dixon: If you’ve got the charter number locked in at 25, then [the Leader Circle] probably needs to expand to 25, then you have the race to the 25^th spot for a charter. I think the whole PREMA situation right now where they’ve … locked them into the cap at 27. If you get any other teams that want to run additional cars, it’s going to be pretty interesting at a point that I don’t really remember being a part of where you’d be sending cars home.

Allaway: I don’t recall that being a thing outside of Indianapolis Motor Speedway during your career. It did happen in the 1980s, when you would see promoter’s options.

Dixon: I think the biggest problem now is really pit lanes at places like Mid-Ohio, Toronto where you can’t fit any more cars on the track.

Allaway: That’s why you see the dual pit lanes in Arlington and Detroit.

Dixon: I think we’ve been pretty lucky with that so far.

Allaway: You’ve had a lot of fun driving this Cadillac over the past couple of years. What are you going to remember from this car?

Dixon: I guess being part of the program right from the get-go and the development of [the car]. You get to work with a lot of amazing people. That’s what you take away from it most of the time. The friendships that you’ve built and sometimes, you cross paths with people that you hadn’t previously worked with.

Just being part of this team, as you alluded to earlier, it’s very tough to be in these OEM teams right now. It’s definitely a fight to be part of it, but I’m real proud to be part of Cadillac and what they’ve achieved. Obviously, we would have liked to achieve a lot more and won more races, but it’s always sad when you have to leave a program.

Allaway: Do you have any sports car plans for next year, knowing that Ganassi will no longer be with Cadillac?

Dixon: I’m all sorted for next year. All three drivers are sorted for next year with different manufacturers and even in [the WEC] as opposed to IMSA.