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Dixon’s engineer Goldberg looking to build on Mid-Ohio win

Brad Goldberg earned his first victory as Scott Dixon’s race engineer at Mid-Ohio on Sunday, and it took place at the perfect place for the pair of Chip Ganassi Racing veterans.

Goldberg rose to prominence as Marcus Ericsson’s race engineer – the pair won four races together, including the 2022 Indianapolis 500 – but Goldberg’s first trip to victory lane as a lead engineer came at Mid-Ohio’s Honda Indy 200 in 2013 with Charlie Kimball. It was a hallmark moment for Kimball, which stands as his lone IndyCar victory, and gave Goldberg his first frontline win for the Ganassi organization.

An off-season engineering change moved Goldberg to Dixon’s No. 9 Honda entry for this year and came with all of the weight and expectations involved with making speed and success for the six-time champion who, like his new race engineer, has a knack for finding the fast way around Mid-Ohio. Of all the tracks for the two to get their first win together, the 2.2-mile road course was a natural fit.

“It makes sense,” Goldberg told RACER. “Obviously, all the cards kind of happened that way, but it was a very Scott Dixon-esque run, wasn’t it?”

Dixon, Goldberg, and race strategist Mike Hull committed to turning a three-stop race into a two-stopper after a caution on the opening lap allowed the New Zealander to go straight into fuel conservation mode. Starting ninth, Dixon would have struggled to catch his polesitting teammate Alex Palou on raw pace, so saving fuel and sacrificing ultimate lap time allowed him to delete a third stop and use the time gain to jump to the lead group.

The strategy worked, as the No. 9 car was up to second place in the closing laps behind Palou, and when the Spaniard lost control of his No. 10 Ganassi Honda and had to gather the car and return to the circuit, Dixon swept by and withstood intense pressure from Palou on the way to winning his first race of the season.

“To be honest with you, it was all Scott who was able to get the mileage and get the lap time and put us in that position to get that victory,” said Goldberg. “And it was obviously nice to get that thing off of our backs, to get a victory with the 9 car this year.”

Prior to getting his first win as Dixon’s engineer at Mid-Ohio, Goldberg got his first-ever win as an IndyCar lead engineer at the same track with Charlie Kimball (sporting a very Dixon 2025-esque color scheme) in 2013. Photo by Marshall Pruett

Goldberg was part of Ganassi’s various sports car racing programs over the decades and worked with Dixon in Grand-Am and IMSA, but this is the first time they’ve been directly linked in IndyCar. They also share a nearly identical tenure with the team they’ve been with for more than 20 years.

“My claim to fame is I started two weeks before he did so I am an older statesman compared to him at the race team,” he said with a laugh. “I’ve worked with him before on the sports car side of things; we’ve had success there but it’s in a different capacity, though when he’d come in as the third driver in that program. So it’s a learning curve, for sure. This is the first time I worked with him in in anger, in IndyCar.

“Yes, you sit across from him in the engineering meetings but you’re not on the timing stand, you’re not with him on the intercom. You’re not with him on the day-in, day-out testing. It is a learning curve, and everybody’s different. He drives the car very differently from my last drivers, and trying to figure that out to give him what he needs has taken some time, to be honest with you.

“So it’s not only figuring out how that car needs to be driven, but figuring out the language between the two has been part of the learning. The good part is we have worked together in the past, so we already have that ‘icebreaker,’ if you want to call it, with a relationship and understanding of each other. So that part is done right now. It’s figuring out what he needs to be fast. So it’s obviously had some ups, it’s had some downs, but the one thing that you know is he and I both want to  win races and championships, and that’s our goal, and that we both have the fighting drive to do that.”

With the Mid-Ohio victory, Dixon moved from fifth to fourth in the championship standings. The gap to Palou, who holds a commanding lead on the entire field, is fairly insurmountable for the Kiwi, but Dixon can chase down second-place Kirkwood and form a 1-2 in the standings over the seven remaining races.

“Our goal is to win races and we have all the tools to do that,” Goldberg said. “We have phenomenal pit crew. I think we’re leading in the pit performance award right now by a decent margin, and (crew chief) Tyler Rees and the guys are amazing. So we have all the tools to do it. It’s execution, and our goal is to win as many races as we can. And whatever happens after that is what happens.

“That’s our push, that’s our drive. We’ve proven now that we can do it. So we’ve gotten that out of the way. So now, it’s just execution. We’re going to a ration of tracks that Scott’s been very good at with Toronto, and he’s had success in Iowa, success in Milwaukee in years past, success at Laguna. That’s our motivation – to go get more wins and let the rest handle itself.”