The News Dump: August 19th

NASCAR- Newman in 39 for 2009: Last night on his radio show Tony Stewart said that his driver Ryan Newman will drive with the number 39 in 2009, not 4. Should make those crybaby Morgan-McClure boys happy. [Scenedaily.com]

NASCAR- 2009 Schedules Announced: NASCAR Announced the schedules for the three big series. The Sprint Cup Series Schedule had a big date swap as Atlanta Motor Speedway will have their second race on Labor Day Weekend. California Speedway will get a date in the chase in October and Talladega Speedway will get a new date in November.

Meanwhile, the Nationwide Series will visit the Iowa Speedway in 2009 and the Truck Series will have the Chicagoland Speedway as a new venue. [Scenedaily.com]

Dandy Dixon wins in Edmonton

Scott Dixon took his first road course victory of the year at Edmonton on Saturday. The Indy 500 winner held off championship rival Helio Castroneves and Justin Wilson to take his fifth victory of the year. Amazingly Dixon didn’t win this race on the track itself; instead it was the quick stops made by his Target Chip Ganassi crew that won him the race.

"I'd sort of envisioned making a move on [Oriol] Servia early in the race, but it wasn't on." said Dixon. "He was quite a bit slower in race conditions than qualifying, so that enabled me to just stay behind him and save a lot of fuel. When the pit stop came we didn't need as much fuel as he did and so we got around him. It was kind of the same thing with the Penskes. I got behind Helio and Ryan, saved fuel and jumped them on the pit stop. That was the key moment of the race."

The race itself was not very interesting featuring very little battles up towards the front, but there were a few noticeable incidents including one in which Marco Andretti punted off his teammate Danica Patrick. Oh, how I wish I could have been a fly on the wall at the Andretti-Green transporter on Saturday evening especially when both Andretti and Patrick were chastised by the team for not letting thier teammate Tony Kannan by who was trying to work in an alternate stratgey.

Paul Tracy who made his return to the Indycar Series on Saturday finished a respectable 4th with a team that was pulled together only a few weeks ago.

"I'm just super excited for the team," said Tracy. "They prepared this car in about a week and a half and I gave it a first class effort. With a little more practice and me not sitting on the couch for the last six months, maybe we could do better!"

With another win Dixon now pads his lead over Castroneves to 65 points, but Dixon knows that the fat lady hasn’t sung just yet.

"There four races to go and a 65 point lead is not that big when you get 50 points for a win," he said. "But it is a big margin if we're still running at the end of every race. And if we can win one or two more, that'll really put the final nail in the coffin."

The Indycar Series next race is on Saturday, August 9th at Kentucky Speedway.

Dixon beats Castroneves in Canada [Autosport.com]

Dixon on cloud nine, but ready to return to level ground

Scott Dixon is on top of the world right now after wining Sunday's Indy 500, but the high of winning one of the world's biggest races won't last long as Dixon will be back at work trying to duplicate a feat that has happen in the three previous years, win the Indy 500 and then win the Indycar series championship.

"We definitely knew that (tradition) because of last season," Dixon said on the morning after the biggest victory of his career. "And we were definitely trying to stop that tradition. Unfortunately, we came up short. This year, we won the 500, and it sounds like a pretty good tradition. We're going to try and carry that on, come away with the championship."

Dixon leaves Indy with a 15 point lead over Helio Castroneves, but the will be no rest for the victor as the Indycar Series heads off to Milwaukee for a race next Sunday.

"We have another championship to win this year," Dixon said. "That is something we get on in Milwaukee. Having won a championship in 2003, that was a long time ago. So I need to get on my game and try and capture another championship for the team and everybody involved. That's exactly what they want to do. We're going to have great memories from this day, and we're going to treasure those for sure, but Thursday, Friday we're back on the game for the championship."

Quick Celebration (Indycar.com)