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| - New Zealand's Scott Dixon tries to secure his sixth IndyCar points crown in Sunday's season-ending Grand Prix of St. Petersburg while American Josef Newgarden makes a longshot upset bid. The 40-year-old Kiwi driver would clinch the title, moving one shy of A.J. Foyt's all-time series record of seven, with a top-nine finish no matter what Newgarden does. "We'll just try to keep it as simple as possible," Dixon said Wednesday. "We're still lucky to be in the situation that we are, the points lead that we do have. That doesn't guarantee you anything." Defending race champion Newgarden, chasing his third season title in four campaigns, trails 502-470 and needs at least a podium finish to have any hope at preventing Dixon from making a wire-to-wire championship run. "We're definitely prepped and ready to rock," Newgarden said. "Just going there to try to win the race. That's really all I can do. "It's still a mountain to climb. It's going to be a very hard task for us to try to win the championship." Newgarden laughed when told that he would win the title in less than 1% of 20,000 possible race scenarios. "We can win the championship," he said. "You're saying there's a chance and that's all we need." A field of 24 drivers will make 100 laps around a 14-turn, 1.8-mile temporary downtown street circuit in the Florida city, which was to have staged the season opener in March before the Covid-19 pandemic delayed the campaign for three months. "It's kind of fitting we come full circle with this," Newgarden said. "It was odd to be there at the beginning of the year when everything fell apart, not just in IndyCar but the world really. "To be able to finally come back and run the race is great." To steer the season over the finish line is a major achievement, Dixon said, given the need for two-race weekends and the postponenment of the Indianapolis 500 from May to August. "Considering what you see from other sports, how they've had to change so much or not do it at all, I think it's a major victory," Dixon said. "It has been such a bizarre year, a year I'll definitely never forget. No one else will really. There will be standout moments you'll reflect on like walking out of (Indy's) Gasoline Alley on race day and seeing nobody. "We have to be thankful for the situation we're in." Dixon has 50 career IndyCar race wins but none in St. Pete, where he has been a four-time runner-up, including to Newgarden last year. "You just try to keep it as any other race weekend," Dixon said. "Yes, there's a little more on the line with being caught up in an accident, points and situations like that. But I think that is something you deal with every race weekend." js/rcw
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