TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Franchitti's Decision Not Open For Debate

ADVERTISEMENT

By TONY FABRIZIO, The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 17, 2008

DAYTONA BEACH - For all the open-wheel racing fans who are bummed about the defection of the defending Indy Racing League and Indianapolis 500 champion to NASCAR, here's a bit of information:
Dario Franchitti wasn't coming back anyway.

Franchitti, who was surprisingly fast in Daytona testing this week, says he would have left the IRL after last season even if the opportunity to race full time in the Sprint Cup series hadn't come about.

"I kind of reached the decision in midseason I was ready to retire from open-wheel racing," Franchitti, 34, said at a Dodge dinner with the media this week. "I always ask myself the question, 'Do I want to do this?' And halfway through the season, I asked myself that question, and the answer was, 'I'm not sure I want to do it in '08.'"

Franchitti nearly retired from open-wheel racing before his stellar 2007 season, and his interest in NASCAR goes back a couple of years. He had a tentative offer to drive for Chip Ganassi last season, but when Juan Pablo Montoya unexpectedly showed interest, Ganassi went with the Formula One star.

"Obviously with the results we had, I'm pretty glad we didn't do the deal in the '07," Franchitti says now.

Ganassi called Franchitti in August about driving for him in 2008, and the timing couldn't have been better. Franchitti was coming off two bad crashes, including one in which his Indy car flipped through the air and rolled over the car of the driver he was racing against for the championship, Scott Dixon.

An official announcement that Franchitti would replace David Stremme in the No. 40 Dodge didn't come until October.

"There was nothing wrong with open-wheel racing," Franchitti said. "I loved competing against all those guys like Sam Hornish Jr., now also in NASCAR and Tony Kanaan. The competition was great.

"It was a combination of factors. Winning the Indy 500 got me thinking, 'OK, that's one big goal achieved,' and I was a little concerned about motivation. I realized my time in open-wheel racing was done regardless what happened with NASCAR. I was so lucky that the opportunity came along, because my No. 1 choice was to come here."

If he hadn't landed the NASCAR ride, Franchitti says he probably would have raced sports cars "or possibly gone and done Supercars in Australia or something like that."

Though never one of the biggest stars in open-wheel racing, Franchitti totaled 18 wins and 63 top-five finishes in CART and the IRL. He was the polesitter for the 2006 Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, and he won the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours or Sebring last year in the LMP2 class.

He faces a difficult transition to NASCAR because of his lack of experience driving full-bodied stock cars, but he was fast in all three days of Daytona testing this week - both in single-car and drafting runs.

Reporter Tony Fabrizio can be reached at (813) 259-7994 or afabrizio@tampatrib.com.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT