Hail the Kiwi

 Quietly, this past weekend, a man from New Zealand achieved a career landmark. You might not have heard about it, although if sports fans were more discerning you would have. Their loss.

What happened was, Scott Dixon scored the 52nd IndyCar win of his career. 

This tied him for second alltime with Mario Andretti. 

The only guy ahead of him now is A.J. Foyt Jr., who won 67 IndyCar races on his way to becoming one of the three most iconic American racers of all time.

Those three, of course, are Foyt, Andretti, and Richard Petty. Petty is the man whose silhouette would be NASCAR's logo if NASCAR had an NBA-style logo. Foyt and Andretti are merely the greatest American racers of all time.

So this is some company the Kiwi is joining.

He's never gotten his proper due, mainly because of the aforementioned lack of discernment. IndyCar passed into the shadow of NASCAR in the 1990s, when the latter became nearly the fourth major professional sport at the same time the former decided civil wars were fun. It was not one of the alltime great decisions.

These days NASCAR's star has dimmed and IndyCar's has brightened somewhat, but the damage has been done. The sporting public in general watches the Indianapolis 500 and then IndyCar vanishes from its radar, partly because there is so much else that commands its attention in the wired-and-streamed 2020s. This despite the fact IndyCar is as competitive and stuffed with talent as it's ever been.

And that includes the good old days of Foyt and Andretti and Rick Mears and the Unsers.

And so here is where we hail the Kiwi, the greatest IndyCar driver of his era. He's smooth, he's fast, and when he makes a mistake it's big news because Scott Dixon never makes a mistake. He's as good as anyone ever was in this game, and that's why you can say the following now in one breath:

Foyt, Andretti, Dixon.

"A.J. Foyt, Mario Andretti, Scott Dixon -- sounds kind of odd, don't you think?" Dixon said back in 2018, when he moved into third place in alltime wins.

Nope. Nope, not at all.