Motorsport: Indy leadership race white hot for Japanese leg

The Indycar Racing League circus makes its annual pilgrimage to Japan for the Indy Japan 300 this weekend, and the race for the championship is hotter than it has been in years.

Three drivers, Scott Dixon, the Scot Dario Franchitti and Aussie Ryan Briscoe have shut the gate on the chasing pack and all have one hand on the trophy.

Just 33 points separate the top three, and with 106 points up for grabs over the last two races of the 2009 season, it's anyone's championship.

None of the three front-runners have won at the Twin Ring Motegi circuit and it's Dixon who thinks he's in with the best chance, despite the championship lead having changed 13 times over 15 races.

"Thirty-three points is nothing man. I could be in the lead after Japan and so could Dario," said Dixon. "We've got to put our heads down as a team and work as a team and win as a team. We haven't been doing much of that, especially on the ovals.

"I haven't won at Motegi and I think it's my time this weekend. I've had some good races there and some bad ones but we've always been competitive there. I think we've got a good shot at winning."

It's been a year of ups and downs and more than a few frustrations for Dixon. But after a horror start for the defending champion - in the first two rounds of the 2009 season, Dixon barely scored enough points to make any impression at all - things picked up mid-season only for the wheels to fall off at Sonoma where he was clipped by another car and finished well down the field.

"There's no way I'd have thought we would be in the position we're now in. Even more so when I think at one point we were leading the championship," said Dixon.

"We've had some shitty races this year, man. As far as the flow of the season this year goes, it just hasn't been one of those years. But to still be one of three with a shot with two races to go it still could definitely be ours."

Of all the tracks the IRL series goes to, excluding the road courses, Motegi is generally regarded as one of the oddest to race on. It's more of an egg-shape than the normal, slightly D-shaped oval the drivers are used to.

"I would say it's one of the toughest tracks we go to," said Dixon. "It's so on edge it's like Phoenix on drugs. You're flat out through one and two that are wide and easy and the car's almost in speedway configuration with little down force.

"Yet three and four, almost flat out again, are much more hairy with a big bump going into three that really upsets the car. Man, I've crashed a couple of times going into three at well over 300km/h. It's real tough. Either you like going there or you dread it."

Not only will the three drivers vying for the championship have to contend with a track that will bite back at the smallest of mistakes, they'll also have to contend with nine racers who haven't been to Motegi before. On top of that, this year's race is at a different time of year in different temperatures.

"Normally as far as it goes, this is the race we [Indycar] leave with the most wrecked cars. The place just destroys cars. It's so on edge but hopefully we'll be doing the right things and we won't have that problem, but it's definitely been that bad in the past, especially for rookies," said Dixon.

POINTS

* Ryan Briscoe - 550
* Dario Franchitti - 525
* Scott Dixon - 517
* Helio Castroneves - 383
* Danica Patrick - 353
* Marco Andretti - 342