Scott Dixon rolls in to the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course for this weekend's Honda Indy 200 in firm command of the 2008 IndyCar Series title. Dixon, who earlier this year won the Indianapolis 500, has notched five poles and four wins en route to a season high 63 point lead over Helio Castroneves. With a maximum of 53 points available to a driver that wins the race and leads the most laps, Dixon has a full race in his pocket with six points paying events remaining.

The declining number of races and increasingly large lead is good for Dixon and bad for his pursuers. Additionally, Dixon heads to a track that again plays right into his strengths.

“As always I look forward to going to road courses during the season and more so when it is a race that we won last year,” said Dixon, the winner of the inaugural IndyCar Series race at the track in 2007. “Mid Ohio is a very challenging track and requires a lot of emphasis on qualifying well. I hope to improve on our qualifying from last year. We tested for a few hours just recently and I believe we found a few things. So all in all I can't wait to get back this weekend and try to defend our title.”

If there is an ever so slight chink in Dixon's armor this weekend it is that his team has chosen chassis number IR6-3 for this race. This marks one of the few times this season they have gone to the track with a car that has no previous race wins to its credit.

That may not be enough to derail what appears to be a championship season, especially considering Ganassi Racing noted car preparation which usually means each car in their fleet is equally capable of winning.

Dixon bounced back from a bad Watkins Glen outing to win at Nashville last weekend. At the Glen, Dixon made a rare mistake, spinning the car while warming his tires under yellow and notching just an 11th place finish.

Nashville showed that he put the mistake in the rear view mirror, though a bit of fortune also fell his way. Missing the call to pit, Dixon had stayed on the track while the other leaders went in for fuel. Fortunately for Dixon the already threatening skies finally opened up before he would need to stop for fuel and he won the rain shortened event.

Among the prizes for winning at Nashville was a custom painted Gibson guitar making it now three such trophies in Dixon's collection. Notably, he has never bothered to learn how to play any of them!

Dixon will take to the Mid-Ohio course on Friday for practice, with knock-out and “Fast Six” qualifying set for Saturday. The race will run on Sunday, July 20 at 1:30 Eastern US Time.

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