And then there were two. After Scott Dixon’s romp on the paddock over the last two NTT INDYCAR SERIES races, he’s now trimmed 52 points off his Chip Ganassi Racing teammate’s points lead and is the last driver remaining who can mathematically catch Alex Palou. The question now is, can he legitimately catch him?

The title has come down to the final race for 17 straight years. If it’s going to jump to 18 consecutive, Dixon has to continue this hot streak this weekend in Portland.

With 108 points on the docket over the final 2 weeks, can Dixon close the gap enough to score a record tying seventh championship? He gained 27 points last weekend and needs to gain at least 21 more on Sunday to stay in the raec.

“Yeah, a win always feels good,” Dixon said after his Gateway win. “To go back-to-back feels fantastic, on two very different circuits. Again, I think it’s a testament to what this team has been able to do, all four cars throughout this year.

“It’s been definitely a bit of a trying year for us I think. As I mentioned before, not getting the results that the team deserved.

“I think what is special is going into the last two races, it can only be a Ganassi driver, which is very cool. I know that makes Chip very proud, and the hundred-plus employees that work at that place, as well.”

Dixon has had a top 7 finish in all but 1 race this year. That was when he was punted by Pato O’Ward in Long Beach. Ironically enough, O’Ward has finished 3rd and 2nd the last 2 races to Dixon’s wins.

Palou has had a top 8 finish in every race this season including being 7th last Sunday.

Since May, Dixon has finished 6th, 6th, 4th, 4th, 2nd, 4th, 6th, 6th, 5th, 1st, 1st. That’s an average finish of 4.09 in that 11 race stretch.

Palou has finished 1st, 4th, 1st, 1st, 1st, 2nd, 8th, 3rd, 3rd, 7th, 7th in the same 11 races for an average finish of 3.45.

They’ve earned the right to be here. To have won 6 of the last 11 races they’re the class of the field.

For Portland, Dixon has finished 5th, 16th, 3rd, 3rd in the last 4 years. Palou won in 2021 and was 12th last year.

For Laguna Seca, Dixon was 3rd, 13th and 12th while Palou was 2nd, 1st.

On natural road courses this season, Dixon has finished 7th, 6th, 4th, 2nd, 1st with Palou 5th, 1st, 1st, 1st, 7th. Combined, they’ve won 4 of the 5 including all consecutively.

A max points day is 54 for a race weekend. 50 for the win, 1 point for a lap led, 1 point for a pole and 2 points for most laps led. That’s 108 points left for the taking.

You do also get 5 points for finishing 25th on back too. That’s means if Dixon is 49 points or further back on Sunday, he will get eliminated.

Which comes down to almost another must-win for him. The thing is, Palou is likely going to be points racing. He has to. Why risk giving up a lot of points. With that said, you have some spoilers that can make things interesting if they can finish between Dixon and Palou on Sunday.

Colton Herta won poles in Road America and Mid-Ohio. A bad pit call kept him out of victory lane in Road America and speeding on pit road kept him off the podium in Mid-Ohio. Still, at Portland, Herta has started 1st, 6th and 7th and finished 4th, 8th and 6th. His teammate, Kyle Kirkwood finished 13th last year, but also won 5 of his 6 Road to Indy starts (2nd in the other) and has finished 12th, 14th, 9th, 17th and 9th on natural road courses in 2023. He spun while battling for third in Mid-Ohio and was punted while starting up front in Road America, so those finishes could in theory be better.

Alexander Rossi has finished 8th, 3rd, 7th and 2nd at Portland. Pato O’Ward qualified 5th and finished 4th last year. He was also 4th, 2nd, 3rd, 8th and 3rd on natural road courses this year too.

Felix Rosenqvist qualified 5th, 4th, 6th and finished 2nd, 6th, 19th at Portland.

Then there’s the RLL duo of Christian Lundgaard and Graham Rahal.

Lundgaard qualified third last year but spun later while running in the top five. At Barber, he qualified sixth and finished there. At Road America he started 7th and finished there too. At Indy, he was on the pole and finished 4th then on the front row and finished fourth again last month with Mid-Ohio coming from 5th to finish 4th.

Rahal went from 10th to 5th the last two years. He qualified in Row 4 for the GMR Grand Prix and overcame being punted on Lap 1 for a top 10 and qualified on the front row in Mid-Ohio and finished seventh. He was also on the pole and came home runner-up in last month’s Gallagher Grand Prix.

Scott McLaughlin dominated this race last year from the pole. There’s plenty of buffers there to take title fight to Laguna.

However, even if it does, the last time that a driver leading the points this time of year with one race remaining that didn’t win the championship after the season finale concluded was in 2015. Juan Pablo Montoya was 34 points up on Graham Rahal but it was Dixon, who was 47 points behind, ended up winning the race at Sonoma as well as the title.

The kicker there was, that race paid double points. They don’t do that anymore. The last time someone came from behind to win the title in the final race with normal paying points was 2012. Ryan Hunter-Reay was 17 points down heading to Fontana that year. Will Power crashed and Hunter-Reay triumphed. That was the final time in a four consecutive year streak that saw the second placed driver entering the season finale ended up taking home the Astor Cup trophy after. Dario Franchitti did it the previous three times with entering the last race 5 points behind Scott Dixon in 2009, 12 points arrears to Will Power in 2010 and 11 points away from Power again in 2011.

If you go back to 2008 though, it’s only happened five times in a 13 year span. None of which other than the double points year exceeded 17 points.

In 2021, O’Ward was 35 points behind. Newgarden was 48. Last year it was 20 points between Power and Newgarden/Dixon and 39 points behind is Ericsson. McLaughlin was 41 points back.

What will Dixon make of the gap this weekend?