Forgotten man Franchitti ready for resurgence

Mike Harris

Thursday, June 21, 2001 | 8:24 a.m.

Dario Franchitti should be on top of the world.

The 28-year-old Scot with the movie-star looks has a ride with a top CART team and is engaged to actress Ashley Judd.

So what's the problem?

"I'm just having a run of bad luck," said Franchitti, almost a forgotten man in the CART championship chase since losing the 1999 title on a tiebreaker to Juan Montoya.

Buoyed by that showing and six victories in a two-year period, Franchitti expected to make a run for the championship in 2000.

But his chance of doing that ended, and his run of ill fortune began, even before the start of the season when a broken part in his car's suspension sent Franchitti into a concrete wall in Homestead, Fla.

He emerged from the crash with a fractured pelvis and a bruised brain, as well as a terrible sense of frustration because his preseason testing was over almost before it began.

"I don't really like to talk about last year because it just sounds like excuses," Franchitti said, grimacing as if in pain. "I don't like to make excuses because everybody runs into problems in this sport."

The accident cost the team valuable development time, and Franchitti wasn't able to get back into his Honda-powered Reynard until three days before the first practice for the season's first race.

"As tough as that was, after the first three or four races, we were doing pretty well," he said. "The car felt good and we were qualifying well, but things just weren't working. We made some mistakes and some other things happened, and it never got quite right."

Compounding the problems was the physical condition of Franchitti's then-new engineer, Steve Challis, who had a stroke and was only slowly recovering his ability to speak.

Although he felt much better in the car in the second half of the season - coming up with two poles and a pair of second-place finishes - Franchitti never completely shook his problems and wound up a disheartening 13th in the points.

"It was so terrible. All I could think was, 'Thank God that's over,"' Franchitti said. "Then my new engineer, Ian Watt, called the first week of December and asked me if I was ready to go testing.

"I said, 'Yeah, bring it on.' I couldn't believe how excited I felt."

The new season began on a positive note, with Franchitti's expectations buoyed by some solid preseason work and his growing relationship with Watt. Despite all the enthusiasm and expectations, though, the first six races of 2001 have been almost as disappointing as last year.

"I keep thinking, 'What do we have to do here?"' he said. "We've been in position to win every race except Long Beach, and where are we?"

The answer is ninth, 37 points behind series leader Kenny Brack with the CART circuit set to race Sunday in Portland, Ore. Until Sunday, when he wound up second to Helio Castroneves in Detroit, Franchitti's best finish had been sixth.

That came at the Long Beach Grand Prix, where Franchitti had not been optimistic about a good result.

Things looked considerably brighter after Detroit, where he made a daring pass of Patrick Carpentier with seven laps remaining.

"That felt good," Franchitti said. "I know we're going to win. This year we're doing everything right and haven't been getting the results. I tend not to give up, though. I just keep waiting for things to come right."

Barry Green, who fields cars for Franchitti, Paul Tracy and Michael Andretti, is equally confident the wins will come for the Scot.

"There has never been any question about Dario Franchitti's ability, just finding a comfort level after everything that happened last year," Green said. "You're asking these guys to drive over the edge all the time and things can happen."

Green, who won a series championship in 1995 with Jacques Villeneuve, said the most important thing the team can do for Franchitti and its other drivers is maintain confidence and patience.

"We know what Dario can do and we know we have a chance to win every race," Green said. "When Dario finally hits a home run, he'll hit a lot of them."