Scott Dixon acknowledges his 18th crack at the Indy 500 is going to be very different than the previous 17.
Photo: © 2019 Scott R LePage
More than 300,000 people usually pack into the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to watch what has long been one of the biggest events on the global motorsport calendar.
But, after initially approving a crowd at 25 per cent capacity, earlier this month officials were forced to exclude fans entirely from this year's race because of ongoing Covid-19 concerns.
The 2008 Indy 500 winner, and five-time IndyCar champ, Dixon said it's hard to understate how different it will be when the green flag dropped on Monday morning (NZ time).
"It's going to be pretty dramatic.
"There's no circuit, or really any venue that goes through this transformation. Even when we have qualifying, we typically have 80 to 100,000 people in and it looks kind of empty, so to have absolutely nobody is going to look very surreal.
"You have generations of people sitting in the same seat for over 100 years, it has that touch.
"It's such a iconic place and such a stronghold, not just in Indiana but across the whole of America and even the world, so it is going to be very strange."
Dixon will have a clear view of those empty stands when the 104th running of the race got underway.
Scott Dixon celebrates after his 2008 Indy 500 win. Photo: PHOTOSPORT
The 40-year-old Kiwi will start from the front row of the grid after proving his credentials for a potential victory by qualifying in second.
Dixon hoped his strong qualification effort would help him avoid any early carnage.
"You kind of want to have a boring day, no trouble. You don't want to be caught in anything.
"When you qualify like I did last year, in 18th, you just become vulnerable with people making mistakes, or you get into the meat of the pack on pit road, which at Indianapolis is very narrow. We've seen many times in the past, people that could fight for a race win [knocked] out of the race there.
"If you can start near the front, that's where you want to be."
The front, specifically first place, was also where Dixon was desperate to be come chequered flag time.
Rather than leaving him content, he said his 2008 triumph only made him more motivated to lift the coveted Borg Warner trophy a second time.
"The drive to get your first win here is immense.
"But then the feeling, gratification and almost relief that you get from winning it, and being on that shortlist of less than 70 people that have ever had the opportunity to win, it's just like a driving force that keeps pushing you forward.
"I'm probably more towards the end of racing at the Indy 500, then I was at the start of it, so every year we definitely give it the maximum."