LEXINGTON, Ohio -- Track qualifying records have been reset this season on the streets of St. Petersburg, Long Beach and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.

The venerable Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course will likely be added to the list this afternoon during the three rounds of Verizon IndyCar Series knockout qualifications for the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio. Watch qualifying live at 3 p.m. ET on NBCSN or real-time Timing & Scoring with the Advance Auto Parts INDYCAR Radio Network broadcast on Racecontrol.indycar.com.

Click it: Combined practice results || Qualifying groups

Scott Dixon, who has won five of the past eight races on the 2.258-mile, 13-turn Mid-Ohio road course, posted a lap in practice this morning of 1 minute, 05.1253 seconds in the No. 9 Target Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet that was quicker than the track record. Former teammate Dario Franchitti, a four-time series champion, set the record of 1:05.347 in 1999. It was matched by Gil de Ferran in 2000.

“I expected this year we’d set a lot of quick times for the series or lap records for tracks," said Dixon, referencing the new aerodynamic bodywork packages supplied by Chevrolet and Honda. "At Mid-Ohio, definitely with the weather we have this weekend and with the body kit working really well, especially at high-downforce tracks like this, I think we expected it. In qualifying, it (the quick lap time) is going to get decimated pretty big. At least a second (faster), probably."

Josef Newgarden, a two-time winner this season, was second quick (1:05.4833) in the No. 67 Hartman Oil CFH Racing Chevrolet. Charlie Kimball, who earned his first Verizon IndyCar Series victory in 2013 at Mid-Ohio, was third (1:05.5096) in the No. 83 NovoLog FlexPen Chevrolet for Novo Nordisk Chip Ganassi Racing. Sebastien Bourdais, the pole sitter for the August 2015 race at Mid-Ohio, was fourth in the No. 11 Team Hydroxycut-KVSH Racing Chevrolet. Ryan Hunter-Reay, the winner at Iowa on July 18, was fifth in the No. 28 DHL Honda for Andretti Autosport.

Dixon is third in the championship standings -- 48 points behind front-runner Juan Pablo Montoya of Team Penske -- with three races left.

“It’s wide-open,” Dixon said. “Obviously you would like to be leading at this point and having some points in the bag but if I remember in 2013 we came from a bigger deficit than this when we beat Helio (Castroneves). I’ve won at all these tracks (left on the schedule) but typically a Penske car is very quick at Sonoma. We won at Pocono in 2013 and Juan won there last year.

“There aren’t just three people. I think there are five possibilities that if any one of them get on a streak they will be hard to stop.”

The green flag for the 90-lap race flies at 2:05 p.m. ET Aug. 2 on CNBC. NBCSN will telecast a re-air at 6 p.m. ET.