Scott Dixon finished in second place at Barber Motorsports Park for the sixth time in 10 IndyCar races at the track, giving him eight podium finishes without a win there.
In a letter he wrote back in 1789, Benjamin Franklin wrote that “Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”
Had he been alive in this day and age, his quote would have ended with “except death, taxes and Scott Dixon finishing in second place at Barber Motorsports Park”.
The Chip Ganassi Racing driver finished in second place at the 17-turn, 2.38-mile (3.830-kilometer) Barber Motorsports Park natural terrain road course in Birmingham, Alabama in his #9 Honda yet again in this Sunday’s race, this time finishing behind only Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Takuma Sato.
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This track has hosted an IndyCar race in each of the last 10 seasons, and in six of the races at the track, Dixon has finished in second place. In fact, in two of the other four, he finished on the podium in third, yet he is still pursuing his first victory there, something that cannot be said for the 44-time IndyCar race winner when it comes to many of the other tracks on the schedule.
Even more interesting is the fact that Dixon’s six second place finishes at Barber Motorsports Park have come after five different drivers have taken the checkered flag.
Dixon finished in second place behind Team Penske’s Helio Castroneves in the 2010 season, and he finished in second behind Team Penske’s Will Power in both the 2011 and 2012 seasons. In the 2013 season, he finished in second behind Andretti Autosport’s Ryan Hunter-Reay.
Dixon finally finished in somewhere other than second place at Barber Motorsports Park in the 2014 season, as he finished in third behind Andretti Autosport teammates Hunter-Reay and Marco Andretti, who finished in first and second, respectively.
In the 2015 season, Dixon had his worst race at Barber Motorsports Park, as he finished in 10th place, before the 2016 season when he returned to the podium with a third place finish.
Dixon got back into the swing of finishing in second place at the track in the 2017 season after Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden won the race. After finishing in sixth there last season, he found himself in his usual position behind the race winner, with Sato being the winner this time around.
But even with an average finish of 3.40 and eight podium finishes, including six second place finishes, just one finish outside of the top six and no finishes outside of the top 10, in 10 races at Barber Motorsports Park, Dixon has still not gotten to victory lane at the track.
Will Scott Dixon ever win an IndyCar race at Barber Motorsports Park? If so, how many more times will he finish in second place at the track before he earns that victory?