INDIANAPOLIS — After a wild 92nd Indianapolis 500, quiet New Zealander Scott Dixon followed through on a dominant month by winning the Greatest Spectacle in Racing Sunday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Dixon started on the pole and led seven times for 115 of the 200 laps.  He held off a late-race charge from Vitor Meira of Brazil and American Marco Andretti to win by 1.7498 seconds.
Dixon finished second at Indianapolis last year.
“I just couldn’t believe it,” Dixon said as he was kissed repeatedly by his wife, Emma. “There were so many yellows there it was hard to get into a rhythm. I was trying to save fuel and the car had a little too much drag on it, but as long as we got a good jump on those guys on the restart, I could stay up front.”
As Dixon was given the traditional bottle of milk in victory lane, he took a big swig and then splashed everyone in pit lane.
After a yellow flag when Milka Duno spun and during which Danica Patrick and Ryan Briscoe collided on pit lane, the race resumed on lap 176, with Dixon ahead of 16 cars on the lead lap.
Andretti passed Helio Castroneves on lap 190 to move into third behind Dixon and Meira. Ed Carpenter, who had dropped to 16th after stalling in the pits earlier in the race, tried to pass Castroneves for fourth, but couldn’t make the move.
But in the end, it was Dixon — the fastest driver all month at Indianapolis Motor Speedway who was fastest again on the day that mattered most — Race Day.

SPECIAL MOMENT: Scott Dixon celebrates his victory in the 92nd Indianapolis 500 Sunday with his wife, Emma. Dixon started on the pole and led 115 of the race’s 200 laps en route to the victory. (Don Figler Photo)

“We come here to the Indy 500 and we’ve been lucky enough to win and we’ve been lucky enough to finish up front,” said Mike Hull, the managing director of Target Chip Ganassi Racing. “This year we had speed and speed was the denominator that we had with both Dan Wheldon and Scott Dixon. When you have speed as your ally, then it makes what we did enormously easier.
“So as Chip Ganassi spoke a couple of weeks ago when we talked about the pole, it’s all about the people that prepare the cars to give them the opportunity to win big races.”
That speed allowed Dixon the opportunity to stay ahead of the trouble, or speed past it, in a race that featured eight caution flags for 69 laps. That dropped the average speed to 143.567 miles per hour and extended the race to three hours, 28 minutes, 57.6792 seconds.
Dixon and his teammate Wheldon were moving targets at the front of the field through the first 200 miles of the race. Wheldon led four times for 30 laps before developing a broken shock and finishing 12th.
At the 100-mile mark, the action was heating up as A.J. Foyt IV tried to leave his pits on lap 40, but his car caught on fire because fuel spilled from the tank.
Foyt’s flare-up came during the second caution of the race when 19-year-old Graham Rahal crashed in the fourth turn on the 37th lap. Rahal said he was held up by Alex Lloyd, who ironically was driving a car owned by Rahal’s father, Bobby, in Sunday’s race.
Marty Roth, the slowest qualifier in the field, crashed out on the 61st lap. The green flag waved on lap 72 with Dixon ahead of his Target teammate. A piece of debris off Roth’s car damaged the front wing on Castroneves’s No. 3, but the Team Penske crew changed the nose piece during a pit stop and the two-time winner was back in the hunt.
The yellow flag waved on the 80th lap when Brazil’s Jaime Camara crashed in turn one. Camara climbed from the race car without assistance.
One lap past the 300-mile mark, Andretti sped past Dixon entering the first turn to take the lead. Earlier, Andretti was involved in a bit of controversy when he tried to pass teammate Tony Kanaan on the inside, resulting in the former series champion, who was leading at the time, crashing into the turn-three wall, collecting Sarah Fisher in the process.
Kanaan was not happy with his teammate, who went to the inside of Kanaan’s car andforced him up the track.
“He’d better be sorry. It was a very stupid move, especially on a teammate,” Kanaan said. “Me being a teammate, I didn’t want to turn into him because it would have taken out two cars on the team. As usual, I’m the leader at halfway and don’t win the race.”
In addition to the numerous incidents, the race saw 18 lead changes among nine drivers with 15 of the 33 starters finishing on the lead lap.
And that type of competition thrilled one of the biggest crowds to attend the Indy 500 in years as the Speedway was close to full with an estimated crowd of 350,000 including crowds lining the infield fence.
And they got to the cheer the driver whose blazing speed throughout the month was matched by his quiet demeanor.
“It’s tough to be aggressive when you don’t have the equipment,” Dixon said. “This month we could be aggressive because I had the tools to do it, and I think that was what it came down to.
“Everybody’s hard work in the off-season and coming into the season, I think the team has been unstoppable over the first five races. It’s nice to be aggressive, nice to have the confidence level and even better to come away with a win like this.”
Meira finished second, ahead of Andretti, Castroneves and Carpenter.