Former IndyCar champ Franchitti returns strong

Published 1:11 pm Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Dario Franchitti wasn’t around American open-wheel racing when it finally became one series again last year.

But the 2007 IndyCar Series champion, once a star in the rival CART series, can certainly see the difference now that he is back.

“The competition level has gone up, even since 2007. It’s just so deep now,” Franchitti said Sunday after winning in Long Beach in just his second race back in IndyCar after an aborted shot at NASCAR in 2008. “Just about everybody is here and it really makes winning tougher and even more special when you do it.”

There was some surprise when the popular Scotsman decided to make the move to NASCAR.

He was a fixture with Team Green in CART from 1998 to 2002, then moved to the Indy Racing League’s IndyCar Series when longtime star Michael Andretti, Kim Green and Kevin Savoree bought the team from Barry Green, Kim’s brother, and renamed it Andretti Green Racing in 2003.

He was a regular contender through most of those seasons, but didn’t win a championship until two years ago in what was by far his best overall performance.

Franchitti won a career-best four times, including the Indianapolis 500, and had 13 top-fives and 16 top-10s in 17 races. He also came away without injury from a pair of spectacular crashes on consecutive weekends in midseason.

The speculation was that Franchitti either believed he had no more worlds to conquer in open-wheel or that those frightening crashes prompted his wife, actress Ashley Judd, to plead with him to move to the bigger, generally safer stock cars.

“I’ll tell you right now that Ashley never asked me to leave (IndyCar),” he said earlier this season. “She’s been totally supportive of whatever I decide to do in racing and outside of racing. It never was an issue.”

Asked after his latest win why he did leave, Franchitti said, “By the end of ‘07, the reason I went to NASCAR wasn’t anything to do with IndyCar. As I said at the time, it was like I needed to do something else.

“I’ve been doing this for a long time and I needed to try something else. I needed a break. I didn’t expect to be coming back.”

Franchitti took his shot at NASCAR with Chip Ganassi, a longtime friend who owns teams in IndyCar and NASCAR.

The transition was tough, but Franchitti appeared to be getting the hang of the 3,400-pound stock cars.

“I have no doubt that he would have been a winner in NASCAR,” Ganassi said earlier this season. “It just didn’t work out the way we all hoped it would.”

When no sponsor turned up for his entry by July, Ganassi was forced to shutter Franchitti’s Sprint Cup team, putting the driver and close to 70 people out of work.

“There was some unfinished business there for me and that was disappointing,” Franchitti said. “But the worst part was all those people losing their jobs.”

Franchitti wasn’t out of a job for long. When Dan Wheldon decided to leave Ganassi’s team to move to Panther Racing, that left open a spot for a veteran driver alongside 2008 Indy winner and series champion Scott Dixon at Target Chip Ganassi Racing.

“When there was a possibility of an opening on our IndyCar team, the only person I thought about was Dario,” Ganassi said when he made the announcement last September.

While Franchitti was away, the IRL absorbed Champ Car, the successor to CART, ending a sometimes bitter 12-year open-wheel rivalry. The unification brought the best of both series together, renewed interest in the sport and gave everyone involved confidence heading into the future.

Franchitti’s return was another positive step.

While Dixon has struggled so far this year, with finishes of 16th and 15th, Franchitti has picked up right where he left off in 2007. He opened with a solid fourth-place run at St. Petersburg and dominated in his win on the seaside street circuit in Long Beach.

“I couldn’t believe it when Chip starting talking about (me) coming back to drive the IndyCar. But here we are. I’m bloody glad I’m back, obviously,” Franchitti said. “But that year away showed me what I was missing. With the unification as well, it all added up.”

After a pair of street races, the series starts a stretch of six straight ovals on April 26 at Kansas, where Franchitti goes in leading the season points.

“I think if we’ve seen one thing from those first two races, (the unification) has jumbled up the order,” he said. “You’ve seen some of the young guys coming in and really putting the pressure on. The competition level is just ratcheted up again this year.

Historically on the ovals, the Target cars, the Andretti Green cars and the (Team) Penske cars have been strong. But other people are figuring it out. I hope the Target cars are going to walk away with it. I know we’ll be fighting it out for wins.”