Scott Dixon and Will Power were both born in Queensland, Australia, separated by about 75 miles and 222 days spanning 1980 into ’81. When they encountered closed doors on the ladder to Formula 1, their talents took them to America, where they emerged as the greatest IndyCar drivers of the 21st century.
Dixon’s 60 race wins and six championships place him second only to AJ Foyt on the IndyCar pantheon. Power is the sport’s all-time leader with 71 pole positions; his 45 wins rank him fourth and he has claimed two championships. They have each tasted victory once in the Indianapolis 500 – Dixon in 2008 and Power 10 years later.
Both enjoyed extraordinarily long careers with IndyCar racing’s premier teams and their opportunities came under unusual circumstances. Toyota helped place Dixon with Chip Ganassi Racing midway through the 2002 CART season when PWR (nee PacWest) Racing shut down; he’s wrapping up his 25th and final year with the team before making a fresh start with Arrow McLaren in 2027. Power was tapped by Team Penske as a temporary replacement for Hélio Castroneves in 2009 when the Brazilian was on trial for US tax evasion. He converted that cameo as a substitute into a 17-year run with Roger Penske’s organisation before switching camps to Andretti Global this year.
Penske’s Will Power and Ganassi’s Scott Dixon, 2012; five wins between them took these drivers to second and third in that year’s standings
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Ron and Glenys Dixon were short track racers who emigrated to New Zealand when Scott was a toddler. He was in karts by the time he was eight and advanced through the Australian open-wheel ladder in record time. The Dixons were plotting a move to England when a network of Down Under racing legends including Kenny Smith and Vern Schuppan helped Scott land a ride in Indy Lights (the top CART feeder series) for 1999 with a new team organised by former F1 racer Stefan Johansson.
After a successful rookie Lights campaign in which the 18-year-old scored a victory on the Chicago Motor Speedway oval, Johansson shuttered the team, took over as Dixon’s manager in a role he still holds, and negotiated a multi-year deal with PacWest that would hopefully take Dixon into the CART series after another year in Lights. Another New Zealander – Paul ‘Ziggy’ Harcus, now a key member of the Andretti Global IndyCar team – ran the PacWest Lights programme.
Dixon’s first season in Indy Lights was 1999; he’d win the series in 2000
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“We had a Formula 3 test planned with Alan Docking and were ready to move to Europe, but we cancelled the test,” Dixon recalls. “The PacWest thing was a complete gift, to be honest. It was a big deal, and obviously it was a storybook year as well, winning half the races and dominating the Lights championship. That ultimately landed a ride on the CART side of the team, which we were hoping would be for many years. Unfortunately, it dissolved within another year and a half.”
“Chip had his hands full with a two-car team and they were doing well”
Dixon made a strong impression in his rookie IndyCar season with PacWest, taking a tactical fuel-saving win at Nazareth Speedway in 2001 and notching two other podiums. When attempts to reorganise the PWR team failed, he was fortunate to land with Ganassi three races into 2002.
“It wasn’t something Chip was looking for,” Dixon remarks. “He had his hands full with a two-car team with Bruno Junqueira and Kenny Bräck and they were doing extremely well. Because we had test teams and that kind of stuff in those days, they were able to piece something together. They had people they could utilise, but ultimately somebody had to pay for it and that was Toyota. I’m extremely thankful for what they did, for sure.”
From left: Dixon, victor at Nazareth, 2001; Power, British F3, 2004
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Power’s father Bob was also an open-wheel racer, advancing to Australian F2. Power spent two years racing in British F3 – the latter, ironically, with Alan Docking Racing – and was competing in the Formula Renault 3.5 Series in 2005 when he got an opportunity in the Champ Car World Series late in the year. Craig Gore created Team Australia in conjunction with Walker Racing to place Australian drivers in Champ Car. When efforts to groom Marcus Marshall and the crash-prone Josh Hunt (who gained the nickname ‘Joe Shunt’) didn’t pan out, Power got the call to drive the Champ Car race on Australia’s Gold Coast.
He impressed to earn a full-time ride with Team Australia and was a regular top five runner in 2006 before winning twice and finishing fourth in the ’07 Champ Car standings. He and Justin Wilson of Newman/Haas Racing looked like the favourites for the 2008 Champ Car crown, but the series was merged into the Indy Racing League after the season opening Long Beach Grand Prix – which Power won.
Power took second place at Thruxton in the 2003 British F3 championship and there’d be five podiums the following season
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Dixon had already made the transition from CART to the IRL when Ganassi switched in 2003. Remarkably, he won the all-oval IRL championship that first year, benefiting from the fact that CART (and Indy Lights) featured a mix of road racing and ovals.
“It was a lot of fun, but a very big unknown,” Dixon recalls. “Started with a bang, getting the first win at Homestead. Then having six DNFs and still winning a championship was almost insane. Doesn’t happen anymore – if you have two, you’re almost out of the top 10. That year we just had crazy speed. Most of the races, if we didn’t crash out or have a reliability issue, we were fighting for a win.”
“Different car, different series, and you’ve got all these ovals”
Dixon then struggled through two years with uncompetitive Toyota engines before reclaiming his winning ways in 2006. He had a new team-mate in the form of Dan Wheldon, who proved to be a valuable resource in Dixon’s maturation as a driver. Dixon dominated the 2008 IRL season for his second championship.
Indy Lights champ Dixon moved to IndyCar for 2001, taking a win and a podium
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“Teaming up with Dan was pretty rough at the start; we didn’t really see eye to eye,” Dixon relates. “But halfway through the first year in ’06, we were best friends and it was so much fun to work together. His style and attention to detail, especially on mile-and-a-half ovals and superspeedways, was really unmatched. Then, 2008 was a wild year. I think any year where you win the championship and the Indy 500 is unmatched. That’s the two goals that anybody has for any kind of IndyCar series, so to do that was pretty special.”
“I used to tease Dario like he was grandma-like, going to get groceries”
While Dixon was winning six races and the 2008 IRL championship, Power was one of the lucky few Champ Car drivers who landed on their feet as Team Australia committed to the unified series. The IRL had introduced a few road races to its all-oval format in 2005, but in ’08, 11 of 17 races were still on ovals. Power, who had never run an oval race in his life, was thrown in at the deep end.
Victory at Homestead in 2003 – on his way to the title
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“That third year in Champ Car was going to be a great year,” he reflects. “We were just starting to get poles and wins and suddenly it’s a completely different car, completely different series, and you’ve got to do all these ovals. That was an incredibly difficult year for me. On the road and street courses, I had a ton of potential. But just with the pressure of having to perform to keep my ride, I made mistakes. I finished that season with really not anywhere to go. I was talking to Dreyer & Reinbold, and then the Hélio Castroneves tax indictment came up and there was an opportunity to fill in at Penske while he was still on trial.”
“Mario is 86 and I know in his mind he’s like, ‘I could race today and win’”
Thrown a career lifeline by Team Penske, Power started and finished sixth at St Petersburg, then qualified on pole at Long Beach and finished second to Dario Franchitti, who was Dixon’s new team-mate at Ganassi. Castroneves was acquitted of his tax charges and returned during the Long Beach weekend, but Penske gave Power four more races, including the Indianapolis 500. He won at Edmonton but broke his back when T-boned by another car over a blind brow at Sonoma Raceway late in the season.
Power was with Team Australia in Champ Cars at the end of 2005
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Still, Penske expanded to three cars to bring Power in full-time in 2010, and he finished second in the championship for the next three years, faltering in the oval season finale each time. Dixon finished third each of those three years, from which two championships were claimed by Franchitti. Dixon then went on a tear, winning championships in 2013, ’15 and ’18, and Power is convinced Dixon emerged stronger from his five years alongside Franchitti.
IndyCar win at Long Beach, 2008, driving for KV Racing
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“I saw him make a jump and he became this incredibly consistent driver,” Power observes. “Always finishing and no matter what situation, he always maximises it.”
“Dario was a different style,” Dixon responds with a laugh. “I used to tease him like he was very grandma-like, like he was going to get groceries at the shopping mall! It was just an eye-opener to see how good he was in any discipline, even down to fuel saving, tyre prep, all that kind of stuff. Dario was one of the most well-rounded drivers I ever came across.”
From left: Following a trio of runner-up places (2010-12) and a fourth (2013) in the standings, a title arrived for Power in 2014; 2018 Indy 500 winner
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In the midst of Dixon’s hot streak, Power finally claimed an IndyCar championship in 2014 and then tasted victory in the 2018 Indianapolis 500. Power never finished lower than fifth in the standings between 2010 and 2020; Dixon ended a season out of the top four only twice in that same period. Dixon’s sixth and most recent championship came in 2020, meaning that he won championships in five different iterations of the IndyCar formula.
Scott McLaughlin took the first IndyCar pole of the 2026 season at St Petersburg, as he looks to come back from a disappointing last year, and he wasn’t the only one with a point to make in qualifying
Four years after Power had achieved the dream of winning Indianapolis, he won a second IndyCar championship in 2022 with a single victory, after racking up 14 race wins during his three-year run of close calls from 2010-12. But his life then took a serious turn when his wife Liz spent a long period of time in hospital with a life-threatening staph infection. In the first half of 2023, Power considered retiring, concerned for the welfare of his young son Beau.
“After my win rate and all the poles, to go and have a super consistent year and win another championship later in my career was really satisfying,” Power says. “But the next year was terrible. Liz all but died. Beau’s future weighed heavily on me. I felt like I was still as quick as I had ever been and still good enough. I knew I hadn’t got the results with that stuff going on, but I knew I was still capable of winning.
“Then Liz recovered and 2024 was a strong year – I won three races. It was so unfortunate to have a seatbelt fail in the last two races because we were capable of winning that championship. Such a pity.”
Mid-Ohio, 2019 – Power, nearest, was on pole but Dixon (No9) won
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Power finished fourth in the ’24 standings, but Penske refused to negotiate an extension to his contract. After the Australian won a round late in the ’25 season at Portland, Penske made a one-year offer that Power rejected, choosing instead to sign a multi-year agreement with Andretti. Power was 11th in this year’s standings.
“I looked forward to the challenge,” he says. “I thought, ‘These guys have great cars on street courses, they do win races,’ and you can see there was room for improvement as well. And they’re only three years into where they’ve had the budget and resources that Penske and Ganassi had. It seemed like a very good place to go. And I was right. I’ve really enjoyed it. We’ve had some serious pace in a lot of places. As bad as the end result looks, we’ve been up there.”
From left: a sixth title for Dixon, 2020; Dixon’s third title
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Meanwhile, Dixon reveals that he nearly moved to McLaren as early as 2019. He admits that Power’s shift to Andretti this year impacted him.
“Maybe Will was a little bit of inspiration, having talked to him and seeing the excitement that he’s had working with different people,” Dixon says. “Will and I had our ups and downs throughout the years. Definitely different personalities, and probably quite opposite in the way that we achieve race wins or championships, which makes for great rivalries. But he’s a good dude. He can be very fiery. He can be very reactive. He’s got a good heart and I love his fierce, competitive nature. He will go down as one of the greatest drivers that IndyCar has seen and his straight-up speed is unmatched. For me to be able to compete through that era with him is fantastic.”
They were never close, and they had only one major flare-up. At Sonoma in 2013, Penske crewman Travis Law (who now manages the Porsche Penske Motorsport sports car programme) intentionally balked Dixon during a pitstop, trying to assist Castroneves in a championship battle that ultimately resolved in Dixon’s favour. But Power is equally effusive about Dixon.
Dixon’s tally of six IndyCar championships puts him among American motor racing’s best, with just AJ Foyt above him
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“Scott is a great person,” Power notes. “It sucked that I never got to fight him head-to-head for a championship because I raced him for years. Incredibly trustworthy on the track, and if he’s leading, he’s probably one of the most difficult guys to get by or force an error out of him. He’s had a great career and obviously I don’t have to say he’s one of the best drivers of our era.”
Dixon turned 46 in July, and Power will follow suit in March. How much fuel is left in the tank for these 21st century legends of IndyCar racing? Can they mount one more challenge to Álex Palou, the sport’s dominant driver in the current era?
“It’s changed a little,” Dixon admits. “It’s probably more of a young man’s game now than ever. For me, it’s always the basics of, ‘Are you enjoying it? Are you competitive? Do you still really want to win?’ Mario is 86 and I know in his mind, he’s like, ‘I could race today and win this race,’ which is phenomenal. I love that passion.
Power, at 45, is eight months younger than Dixon; both were without wins in 2026 – Power had five podiums, Dixon one
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“I think the runway could be quite long at McLaren. We all know that we’re not jumping because the grass is greener; at this level, all the teams are very good and well-matched. But I’m looking forward to it and excited for a new chapter.”
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Here are US racing’s time-defying dudes
IndyCar icons have traditionally had longer careers than Formula 1 or even sports car aces. Mario Andretti ran close to the front the longest; he contended the CART championship through 1988 when he scored the penultimate of his 52 race wins at Cleveland. He won one last time aged 53 at Phoenix in 1993, below, and reluctantly retired at the end of ’94, although he continued to race sports cars through to the 2000 Le Mans 24 Hours, at 60.
AJ Foyt was 43 when he claimed his last full-field IndyCar win at Silverstone in 1978. He racked up six more wins through 1981 against a diminished USAC field to bring his total to a record 67 and continued to compete until retiring at 58 prior to 1993 Indianapolis 500 qualifying.
AJ Foyt, 43, was still winning USAC races with Gilmore in ’78
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Gordon Johncock’s superb three-win 1982 campaign at 45 was his last season as a frontrunner but he contested Indianapolis for another decade. Bobby Unser won Indy in 1981 at 47 and stepped away from driving at the year’s end; his brother Al triumphed at Indy in ’87 five days short of his 48th birthday and he kept running the 500 through to 1993, taking third in ’92. At 48, Johnny Rutherford eked out one last win at Michigan in 1986 but failed to qualify at Indianapolis from 1989 until calling it quits prior to the ’94 race.
The gold standard is Rick Mears, who recognised he was losing his desire and walked away at 41; Michael Andretti was 40 when he stopped racing full-time and switched to team ownership.
