The Iceman still cometh

 You might have missed it with the Stanley Cup playoffs getting started and the NBA playoffs, too, but over the weekend one of the more enduring eras in sports continued to, well, endure.

Out in Long Beach, Calif., in one of IndyCar's most venerable street-course races, the most venerable man of them all showed 'em the fast way around. Call him Dixie or the Iceman or just the Best Racer Of His Generation -- he's all of those, and no arguments to the contrary will be entertained on the last one -- but call Scott Dixon your Long Beach winner.

And in perhaps the most remarkable drive of the season so far.

Scott Dixon started eighth, worked his way to the front and then kept a host of eager throttle mashers in his mirrors by somehow stretching his fuel beyond the boundaries of convention. He made one load last 50 of the 85 laps, led 42 of them, and balanced speed and endurance on just enough of a knife's edge to hold off Colton Herta and Alex Palou and Josef Newgarden, who were once again amazed by IndyCar's old man.

"Once he took (the lead), I was like 'He's going to make it work'," said Palou, Dixon's teammate.

"Seems like Dixon is the only one that goes for these things sometimes, and they always work out," Herta concurred.

If that was another way of saying no one's better at the speed/fuel conservation thing than Dixon ... well, maybe that's because he's been doing it awhile. Long Beach was the 57th win of an IndyCar career that goes back more than two decades; only A.J. Foyt, with 67, has won more. 

The only anomaly in all of that, of course, is an echo of another golden era driver, Mario Andretti. Like Mario, he's won the Indianapolis 500 just once, in 21 starts.  That was 16 years ago, in 2008. Dixon was 27 years old, and no one doubted more milk-dousings were to come. But despite finishing in the top five six times since, it hasn't happened. 

And yet ...

And yet, he won his first major open-wheel race in just his third start back in the CART days, then won his first IndyCar championship the next year, when he was 23. He's won five more titles since -- and with his win in Long Beach, he's now won at least one IndyCar race for 20 straight years.

Twenty straight years with at least one win. Twenty straight years, as times changed and fortunes changed and the series got more and more competitive. And now he's 43 closing fast on 44, and there are more gifted young chargers in the series than it's seen in perhaps 30 years, and still the old man shows them all his tailpipes at least once every season.

The Iceman still cometh, in other words. And everyone else traileth.