ESPN John Oreovicz Blog

WEST ALLIS, Wis. -- Six weeks ago, many were wondering whether Scott Dixon and the No. 9 team at Target Chip Ganassi Racing were again suffering from a postchampionship hangover. After a poor start to the season on the St. Petersburg and Long Beach street courses, Dixon languished in 16th place in the IndyCar Series standings.

After two wins in the past three races, Dixon leads the points chase. So much for slumps.

"We've given up our two bad races in the first two races," the New Zealander said. "We at that point knew we had to gain a lot of points back. Now we've got to go out, we've got to try to maintain and gain as many points as possible. We've got to try and win a few more, and it's going to be a tough season no matter what."

Dixon is the defending champion at Texas Motor Speedway, the next stop on the IndyCar calendar. Then it's on to two more short ovals at Iowa and Richmond.

Certainly, it's too early to start calling Dixon the championship favorite. But he is the first two-race winner in 2009 and is headed to a series of tracks where he consistently excels.

Now boasting 18 IndyCar Series race wins, the 28-year-old is on the verge of tying Sam Hornish Jr. for the most victories under Indy Racing League sanction. Hornish is the only three-time series champion.

"[Ryan] Briscoe has been consistently strong," Dixon said. "Between him and Dario [Franchitti] and a couple others, those are the guys you've got to watch for.

"Luckily, in terms of the championship, Helio [Castroneves] and TK [Tony Kanaan] have had a couple bad days. Danica [Patrick] could definitely be a factor, especially with a lot of ovals that we have.

"So it's hard to know. There's a good six, seven, eight people that could win this championship. There's so many great competitors, and they can pop out at any point."

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If anyone appeared to be suffering a celebratory hangover at Milwaukee, it was Helio Castroneves. Fresh (or not so fresh) off a grueling week of media appearances courtesy of his third victory in the Indianapolis 500, Helio was a bit out of sync at The Mile.

On Saturday, he struggled several times with Turn 2 in practice, and on his first qualifying lap, he was unable to control a slide and crashed the car. Starting from the back, Castroneves struggled to pick his way through theoretically slower cars -- at least until the leaders loomed in his mirrors.

Fortunate timing on the day's only two full-course cautions allowed Castroneves to remain on the lead lap. But a long final pit stop (gearbox issues) cost him three laps and relegated the driver to an 11th-place finish.

"Today was one of the days that when you ask, it seems like there were 700 laps to go," Castroneves said. "One of those days, man. I just want to go back home, and that's it, then come back next year.

"Having the crash yesterday and starting in the back, it obviously didn't help," he added. "It was just dragging us down even more to a worse position. But the good news is we finished. Our goal was to try to finish in the top 10. Unfortunately, it was just one spot short."

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The top three finishers (Dixon, Briscoe and Franchitti) dominated the Milwaukee race. But there were some other solid performers, even if they ended up half a lap behind at the finish.

Graham Rahal demonstrated his development from a year ago after matching his outside-front-row qualifying effort. Instead of crashing on race day, Rahal brought the McDonald's Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing car home in fourth place, best of the rest on this day.

Danica Patrick drove another mistake-free race for her fourth consecutive top-5 finish. She's now a career-best fourth in the IndyCar Series point standings.

Rookie Rafael Matos did everything that was expected of him and more by not only bringing the Marines Luczo Dragon Racing car home with four wheels but also in sixth place.

And Marco Andretti kept his cool all afternoon despite qualifying only 13th and dropping to 20th place on the opening lap. He stayed on the lead lap all day and finished seventh.