By alley - Jun 9, 2017, 6:55 PM ET

Dixon unsure of how new surface will change Texas race

Friday's qualifying runs for the RainGuard 600 at Texas Motor Speedway showed some impressive turns of speed – especially from the Honda runners, who swept the first eight grid spots. But what the oval's new track surface portends in terms of racing lines and tire degradation for Saturday night's race remains something of a mystery according to Chip Ganassi Racing's Scott Dixon.

"I think it's easy to jump to conclusions," cautioned the championship leader, who will start second alongside teammate and first-time polesitter Charlie Kimball. "It's definitely different from last year. I think [Turns] 3 and 4 are going to be a little easier to run side by side. [Turns] 1 and 2 right now – especially when you move up to the upper lanes – are pretty slippery. I know at the test the second lane was quite useful. I think as we run more cars – I'm not sure how they did the aging process, but it's definitely quite night and day from the dark patch where the rubber is as you get up a bit higher. I think they've done a great job. Obviously this track is going to be useful for many different formulas, not just us, so I think we have a package that is workable and something that will provide good racing."

"You're always going to get degradation. The first six laps or so of any tire is the best, and I think on our longer run today, we just did 20 laps, and you're starting to get some blistering on the right rear – which is quite normal for a new track surface, especially when the speeds are up and the loads are quite high," he noted. "I think Firestone have done a tremendous job from the test [to] where we've come to right now. You're going to have to run the high line at some point and probably quite a lot during the race, so I think that will probably play out a little better. But you know, I still think that the last 20 laps of every stint, 50, 55 laps is going to be pretty interesting and maybe even earlier, especially in the earlier stints at the start of the race with the track temp up.

"But, I don't know – it's hard to really comment because I think there's a lot of unknowns. We haven't really run here a whole lot. The practice session was very short, and nobody got to run a lot of laps."

While starting up front is helpful on any track, Dixon downplayed the significance of qualifying vs how the race will play out.

"I think it helps just keeping yourself out of trouble, but as we've seen in the past, if you've got a good car, you can come from the back here. It's definitely going to be about maintaining speed, probably for the last 20 laps of the stint."