Dario having a not-so-super summer
JOLIET -- A year ago, Dario Franchitti was on top of the racing world.
He had won the Indianapolis 500. At Chicagoland Speedway, he had won the IndyCar championship in the last mile of the last lap, passing Scott Dixon, whose car had run out of fuel.
michael r. schmidt/staff photographer
This year, Dixon was the winner of the 500, and leads the IndyCar standings. Franchitti, having jumped to stock car racing over the winter to run for Chip Ganassi and Felix Sabates in the Sprint Cup series, no longer has a Sprint Cup car.
Without a sponsor, the team's financing ran out, and Ganassi shuttered Franchitti's team prior to last week's race in Daytona Beach, Fla. Seventy people at the team's headquarters in Concord, N.C., have been laid off.
It had already been a long season for Franchitti. After surviving a pair of midair cartwheels in his Indy car last season, he suffered a broken ankle in a stock car race in Talladega, Ala.
That sidelined him for five races. His best finish in 10 Sprint Cup starts was 22nd at Martinsville. He didn't even qualify for the road race in Sonoma, Calif., embarrassing for a someone who had once run in the Champ Car series.
For the moment, Ganassi's letting Franchitti drive a car in the support series, which is better than nothing. Franchitti finished 26th in Friday night's Dollar General 300 after qualifying sixth.
In the long term, running in NASCAR's No. 2 series will not do. For one thing, Franchitti is sharing the car with Bryan Clauson. For another, Franchitti is a headliner, not someone who wants to be in a support series.
Franchitti and Ganassi talked about their future together on Friday morning. If Franchitti needs a ride, he'll be able to find one quickly.
"The phone's been ringing, which has been nice, from all kinds of different places," Franchitti said after his first practice on Thursday. "Things are so up in the air that you can't make any decisions."
Long before Franchitti and Ganassi hooked up, the Scot had spoken with Richard Childress about driving for him on several occasions. Childress plans to run four cars next season, so that's one possibility.
Going back to Indy cars, where he enjoyed his greatest success, is another, though before Ganassi folded his team, Franchitti had ruled it out.
Another possibility is sports car racing. Ganassi maintains two teams in the Grand American series, and drivers Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas are tied for the series lead.
"Right now, I don't know," Ganassi said. "It would be a shame to come over (to stock car racing) and start that learning curve and really start to get the hang of it, and certainly the Sprint Cup in the last month, really well. The results don't show it. We've been taken out twice and blown an engine, but we're running top 15 every week, some cases top 10."
"So it would be a shame to quit now. I've won in every type of car I've ever driven, and I'd really like to be able to continue that, but if I can't get the right opportunity, then I'll look elsewhere for sure.
"At this point, there are a lot of things out there that excite me."
