Herta, the 21-year-old rising American star, had just a few minutes to celebrate his name atop the pylon at famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He thought his four laps were pretty solid but knew Dixon, the six-time IndyCar champion and last driver to make his run, was going to be difficult to beat.
"I knew I was first. I didn't know what Dixon was doing, I wasn't really sure what was going on," Herta said. "I could only tell by what the crowd was cheering that it was probably bad news for me."
Even when he's feeling far from his best, "The Iceman" cannot be rattled.
His pole-winning run was his first since 2017 — a drought his wife, Emma, often ribbed him about — and that last one had its own unique story. After claiming the top spot for the Indy 500 that year, he celebrated with Dario Franchitti and a trip to the Taco Bell down the street from the speedway.
As the two drivers with a combined four Indy 500 wins and 10 IndyCar championships idled in the drive-thru lane awaiting their chalupas, they were robbed at gunpoint less than a mile away from where they'd been celebrating just hours earlier.
That Taco Bell has since been knocked down and replaced by a hamburger joint, so the party never left the motorhome lot at Indy on Sunday night. Franchitti made a trip to a pizza joint on Main Street in Speedway and returned with a trunk full of pies.
"They way over-ordered and when I got back to the bus this morning there were still boxes of pizza everywhere. Just a bunch of slobs," Dixon complained.
But it's the least of his worries for the next few days. Cars aren't back on track until Friday and Dixon planned to spend Monday catching up on sleep and trying to shake his cold. This is a big week for the New Zealander, who with 51 career victories ranks third on IndyCar's all-time wins list.
One more win will tie him with Mario Andretti for second and put A.J. Foyt and his 67 career wins next on Dixon's to-do list. But rankings and milestones mean little right now to Dixon, who turns 41 in July and is by far the longest tenured driver in Ganassi history.
Ganassi hired Dixon four races into the 2002 season and the pair has shredded the record books together. All the wins and trophies are wonderful, but at this stage of his career, Dixon finds it's the near-misses that stick with him the longest.
He's only won the Indy 500 once, in 2008, and a driver of his stature should have more wins in "The Greatest Spectacle of Racing." But he's finished second three times — twice to Franchitti, no less — and again last season when a late yellow flag ended any chance at passing winner Takuma Sato in the closing laps.
Dixon won't put added pressure on himself headed into Monday's race NZT. He wants the win, of course, but approaching Indy as anything but another day at the office can only disrupt the approach he's taken in each of his last 18 Indy 500s.
"I truly see it as just another race. I think if you treat it any differently then it becomes a bit weird," Dixon said. "The problem with the 500 is there are so many emotions. It's just an emotional rollercoaster through the whole event. There are races that determine winners and races that determine champions. I think there's a big difference between winners and champions and this is a place where racers become champions."
