Less than 15 months after winning the Indianapolis 500, and less than a year after clinching the Indy Racing League championship, Dario Franchitti is like a man without a home.
The friendly Scotsman thought his rookie season in NASCAR Sprint Cup racing would be a lot more successful. Never in his wildest dreams would the husband of actress Ashley Judd think that he’d be, in essence, out of a job in his first return trip to Indianapolis as a race car driver since his triumph in the 500 in May 2007.
But that’s what’s happened. When team owner Chip Ganassi could no longer run Franchitti’s team on an unsponsored basis, he was forced to lay off Franchitti and more than 70 employees of the No. 40 Dodge team.
“It was a big shock that it happened,” Franchitti said. “I understand that if there’s no money, there is no money.
“It’s particularly frustrating because we really felt that we were getting a hold of it. The team as a whole struggled with it at the start of the year, and I struggled with learning the ropes, but since I came back from my broken ankle, I really felt we were running as well, if not better (in his last few races before the team was disbanded).”
Franchitti still has a part-time ride in the Nationwide Series for now, but his Cup future is a huge question mark. Whether he’ll come back to Ganassi, let alone another Cup organization, remains to be seen.
Right now, the Nationwide ride is all he has to look forward to. But, Franchitti has hopes perhaps the biggest challenge-turned-disappointment in his racing career will still find a way to turn around and end up on a positive note.
“We’re starting to look around, starting to talk,” Franchitti said last weekend at Chicagoland Speedway.
Ganassi is still attempting to salvage some type of deal for Franchitti. The most recent rumors have Ganassi contemplating pulling Reed Sorenson out of the No. 41 Dodge and bringing Franchitti back to race that car for the remainder of the season.
Sorenson is in the final year of his contract with Ganassi and given the poor overall performance he’s had this season — he’s currently a very disappointing 32nd in the Cup standings — it’s likely he will not be resigned for 2009.
If that happens, Franchitti will get a second chance, plus with sponsorship from national retailer Target. Without having to worry about sponsorship, he could go out and show that he really has adapted to Cup racing more than his record prior to the No. 40 team’s shutdown indicated (qualified for just 10 races with a single-race best finish of just 22nd at Martinsville in April).
