Dixon's strategy simple: Win

Brickyard triumph is what fuels him

SCOTT DIXON Pole-sitter tomorrow

INDIANAPOLIS - Had his team adopted a different fuel strategy at Motegi, Japan, and Kansas Speedway, Scott Dixon figures he might have walked away with two more wins to go along with his victory in the IndyCar Series opener at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

"Missing [out at] Motegi and Kansas, by strategy, I think we had the fastest car on both those days," said Dixon, driver of the No. 9 car fielded by Target Chip Ganassi Racing. "It would have been nice to capture those wins, but I'll trade those for one here."

Dixon will be sitting pretty as the pole-sitter for tomorrow's 92d Indianapolis 500.

He captured the prestigious spot in the 33-car grid with a four-lap average of 226.366 miles per hour during pole qualifications May 10. Yesterday, Dixon had hoped to make one final shakedown during Carburetion Day preparations, but wound up having to park it after turning just six laps at the 2 1/2-mile oval when rain forced the cancellation of practice, the pit stop competition, and the Freedom 100 Firestone Indy Lights Series race.

Dixon's fastest lap came on his fourth tour of the Speedway in 223.028 m.p.h. Teammate Dan Wheldon, the 2005 Indy 500 winner, was fastest in the shortened practice with a lap of 223.934 m.p.h.

"My theory around here is that if you don't know it by Carb Day, you're never going to have it," Wheldon said yesterday. "You can certainly finetune it in the race with all of the pit stops you have. The balance seemed nice today. Let's just hope that it's like that Sunday."

Brian Barnhart, the IRL's president of competition and operations, indicated that 32 of the 33 cars on the starting grid did an installation check before participating in yesterday's practice session, which lasted 11 minutes. "Everybody has fresh motors and is ready for race weekend," Barnhart said, indicating that 27 drivers ran at a reasonable speed in excess of 202 m.p.h.

"To be honest with you, I don't think with the forecasted weather there was a lot of planning for a lot of running anyway."

According to Barnhart, the race day forecast calls for low 80s. "If the temperature here Sunday at 1 o'clock is in the low 80s, this place is going to get hot and slick and they're going to need a lot of downforce, a lot more downforce than they would have needed to run in today's conditions."

Double time
Jeff Simmons will be pulling double duty this weekend, driving 600 miles in two days at the Speedway. Simmons, a 31-year-old Boston College graduate from East Granby, Conn., will drive for Team Moore Racing in today's Freedom 100. Tomorrow, Simmons will climb into the cockpit of the No. 41 car fielded by A.J. Foyt Racing and make his third career Indy 500 start. Simmons turned five laps during Carb Day practice, with a fast lap of 214.748 m.p.h. "I never put a full lap together," he said. "But we ran enough to know that we have a good balance in the car. I feel we're in good shape for the [500]." . . . Larry Corda of Wellesley, Mass., and Harvey Gordon of Sharon, Mass., made it out to Indy this year to work in the pits, as they have since 1998. But this time, they'll be doing so without Richie Maccagnano, who stayed home in Holliston, Mass., and not for car owner Paul Diatlovich, who was unable to field an IndyCar team. Instead, Corda and Gordon joined Diatlovich as volunteers on the American Spirit Racing team, co-owned by rock legend Sammy Hagar, that will field an entry in today's Firestone Indy Lights Series event for rookie driver Cyndie Allemann of Moutier, Switzerland. Asked if they intended to stay for tomorrow's 500, Corda said, "I don't know. It's not going to be the same watching from the stands after we've been in the pits." . . . For a sense of the enormity of the 2 1/2-mile track at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the Vatican, Churchill Downs, Wimbledon's tennis complex, the Colosseum in Rome, Yankee Stadium, and the Rose Bowl could all fit into the Brickyard's 253-acre footprint.