Friday, February 27, 2009
HOMESTEAD, Fla. (AP) — Dario Franchitti was walking from his car to the team’s transporter Tuesday night when a trio of crewman from a rival team strode past.
“Welcome back, Dario,” they shouted.
Franchitti smiled and returned the greeting. It’s good to be back home.
The Scot has returned to open-wheel racing after taking a shot at NASCAR following the 2007 season, when he won the Indianapolis 500 and IndyCar Series championship.
The stock car adventure ended abruptly last July when team owner Chip Ganassi closed Franchitti’s team for lack of sponsorship, with few prospects of finding any backing in the bleak economy.
Tuesday, during a break on the opening day of preseason testing at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Franchitti said he has mixed feelings about his short stay in NASCAR.
“I’m disappointed because I’ve been lucky enough to win in everything I’ve ever done,” he said. “So the fact I didn’t win, or [have] what I consider success, kind of grates a little bit.”
But Franchitti doesn’t consider his time in NASCAR a failure.
“I was getting the hang of it by the end of it,” he said. “Certainly, the last three races in the Cup car I was starting to run as good if not better than my teammates. And, in the Nationwide car, we qualified on the pole at the road course [at Watkins Glen] and on the front row at Bristol and led 80-something laps there.”
Ganassi, whose IndyCar team won the Indy 500 and the championship last year with Scott Dixon, needed a replacement for Dan Wheldon, who left to join Panther Racing. Franchitti was the obvious choice.
There was some surprise when Franchitti decided to come back to IndyCar, particularly since there had been plenty of talk that his wife, actress Ashley Judd, considers open-wheel racing too dangerous.
“Ashley and I were driving back from the Nationwide race in Michigan [in August],” Franchitti said. “Chip and I had talked about the possibility of me going back to IndyCar as early as the first week in July. I turn and I say, ‘Hey, how would you feel if I went back to IndyCar?”
“She said, ‘I would love it. I would absolutely love for you to get to go back and do what you love and what you’re very, very good at.’ It wasn’t the reply I was expecting. Her support means a lot.”