Jul 7, 2008

From Penthouse to Outhouse

Last year Dario Franchitti was on top of the world. Not only was he squiring around his beautiful wife, actress Ashley Judd, but his racing career was going full speed ahead. He was dominating the IndyCar series with four victories including a win at the Indianapolis 500; he was leading in points on his way to the eventual championship, and he had earned more than $4 million in race winnings. One has to ask, could life get any better?

Well, if you see life as a series of ups and downs -- and the longer I live the more I see it that way -- then the Dario Franchitti roller coaster is definitely in a downgrade at the moment. After switching from the IndyCar series to the more visible and potentially lucrative NASCAR Sprint Cup series, much was expected of Franchitti, a driver with world-class open-wheel racing skills, but NASCAR just hasn’t happened for him. Despite being with a well-regarded team owned by successful racing maven Chip Ganassi, Franchitti’s best finish this year was 22^nd. He broke his ankle in a crash in the lesser Nationwide series, which caused him to miss nearly have a dozen Sprint Cup races, and that certainly didn’t help him in adapting to the stock car scene. Then, somewhat inexplicably, the talented road racer failed to make the field in one of Sprint Cup’s few road races at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, Calif.

All of this might have been seen as simply part of his “learning curve” in another year, like 2007 or 2007, but in this year of a difficult economy, it all proved to be fatal to his chances in NASCAR. Facing a lack of sponsor money to fund the Franchitti car and little prospects that more sponsor money would somehow become available in the next several months, Ganassi bit the bullet and shut down the entire Franchitti-involved section of the Sprint Cup team. That means not only is Franchitti without a ride, but also some 70 members of the team that supported Franchitti in Sprint Cup this year are without a job.

That is emblematic of the times and more tragic than Franchitti’s loss of a racing seat. A talented driver, he will undoubtedly land an IndyCar and/or sports car ride soon, but the members of his former team might find it a bit harder to find spots for themselves as racing responds to a worsening economy.