2008 was a remarkable year in American motorsports. Open wheel racing was beginning to rapidly lose luster, stock car racing held the largest market share, and the country was battling a stumbling economy. In the middle of all this was 34-year-old Dario Franchitti. The Scot’s story is an inspiring journey filled with mountains of success and failure.
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Franchitti was a driver for Andretti Green Racing in the IndyCar Series in 2007. His success in that season, winning the Indy 500 and the championship, and the state of open-wheel racing caused him to lose interest in continuing to be a driver on the platform. His colleagues including Juan Pablo Montoya and AJ Allmendinger had already left to join NASCAR and he wanted to do the same.
Following the failure of a contract discussion with his friend Richard Childress, he got an opportunity to drive for Chip Ganassi Racing and he took it. Many expected him to hit things right off the bat but that did not happen.
It did not take long for Franchitti to realize that he’d made a mistake either. Now 51, he admitted this in a recent interview with Conor Daly and explained his thoughts.
He narrated, “I got in the car at Talladega, the ARCA car. Within the first 50 meters, I thought in my head, ‘Oh my god! what have I done?’”
“An Indy car, it takes your breath away. The stock car was a hell of a challenge. More of a challenge I think than anything I’ve ever driven in my life. But it never took my breath away.” That race was his feet dip into the game in 2007.
Franchitti’s underwhelming NASCAR career and subsequent rise to fame
By then, it was too late to back out of his commitment. He ran four Nationwide Series races along with the ARCA Menards appearance in 2007 but failed to impress in any. It was impeccably clear that he needed more experience in stock car racing, but he had no option but to race full-time in 2008. Naturally, the IndyCar fans did not love him for abandoning a sinking ship.
Stepping into 2008, Chip Ganassi Racing and Franchitti had two big issues. First, sponsorship woes because of the financial crisis. No company was willing to fully sponsor his Cup Series drive.
Second, the CoT cars. Franchitti said in the interview, “It was those horrible CoT cars. I’ve got an SUV outside that handles better. But then in the Xfinity series, it was those old-style cars and they were cool.”
As a result, his sponsorship had to be obtained on a race-to-race basis. His results in the meanwhile were bottoming out in the Cup Series because of the CoT car. He was able to bring in better results in the second tier but that did not matter in the larger picture. 12 races, of which nine were outside the top 30 and two were DNQs, later Ganassi decided to cut him out.
He finished the year running a part-time stint in the Nationwide Series. Anyone would have thought at this juncture that Franchitti’s story was over. He was a beaten man. But he did not believe that.
He got back to the IndyCar Series in 2009 and won three straight IndyCar Series championships. He also won the Indy 500 twice more, in 2010 and 2012. Things do happen for a reason sometimes.
