Dario Franchitti.  One decade ago, he tied a pre-Pablo Juan Montoya in points for the CART Championship, but lost it on the first tiebreaker, which read, according to the CART rule book, as:

Any driver who is not Paul Tracy’s teammate shall be first entitled to the FedEx Cup.

Hey, it makes no sense to me, either, but the rules are the rules. 

After a few more years in CART where he fumbled around the middle of the top ten in the standings, he moved to the IndyCar Series in the great exodus of 2003.  Dario was none-too-happy.  You see, early-IRL Dario was always happy to express how unsafe the racing was.  Now to be fair, with mandated wing angles and the rash of major crashes that occurred in his first few years in the Series, he may have had a point. 

In 2003, a motorcycle accident in Scotland kept him out of most of the season.  He had a pair of wins each in 2004 and 2005, though he finished behind teammates Dan Wheldon and Tony Kanaan in each of those seasons.  He missed the final race in 2006 after suffering a concussion at Goodwood in England.  Missing that final race resulted in Marco passing him in the championship standings, once again resulting in Dario finishing third on the team (TGFBH). Then there was 2007.  Dario won the championship in 2007, passing Dixon on the final corner of the final lap as Dixon ran out of fuel.  That’s not what everyone remembers about Dario’s 2007 season.  Everyone remembers the nearly devastating wreck at Michigan (which may or may not have been Dario’s fault) followed by his boneheaded flip at Kentucky, rear ending Kosuke-san after the race had finished.  Thankfully, no one was seriously injured in either accident. 

Even before he won the championship, there were consistent rumors that he’d go to the Andretti Retirement Home, a.k.a. their ALMS team.  In fact, I think it was basically a given.  Well, until he turned his back on all of us.

Dario and Ashley decided to pack up and move down south.

First, you have to realize that in the South, they don’t legally recognize a marriage if it occurred between an American and a foreigner.  Therefore, Dario had to gain his citizenship and have a proper southern wedding.  Here’s a picture of Dario awaiting his lovely bride:

Second, he’d have to attract a whole new fan base.  Honestly, I don’t think Dario was ever the beloved son of the IndyCar Series, unlike that other turncoat Sam Hornish, so he didn’t have the HUNDREDS of fans to follow him over.  Well, that part of the experiment didn’t really get the chance to take off.  He suffered an ankle fracture (I think it was in a Busch race), and by the time he healed, Ol’ Chip had shut down his ride.

The next few months were tough on Dario. Well, not really; he’s married to a beautiful movie star.  That said, he did try begging one day, just because he had nothing better to do.

He had little success at that.

So come the end of the 2008 season, Chip had pissed off Dan by trying to sign Tony.  Basically, it was a big twisted love triangle that would have made Days of Our Lives blush. The end result was Dario going to a red car, and that’s why we are where we are…

I’ve been hard on Dario for going to cabs on this site before, and I probably will be again.  That said, forever shall Dario be known as the last non-red car to win a Series championship, and for that, we love him.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 7th, 2009 at 4:43 pm and is filed under ICS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.