Indycar return for Franchitti unlikely

After his Sprint Cup team shut down earlier this week, there have been many rumors sprung up on what 2007 Indy 500 Dario Franchitti will do to get his racing career back on track. Dario will like everyone to know that a return to the Indycars is out of the question.

"Let's see what the future holds," Franchitti said. "I need to sit down with Chip and see where his head is, but NASCAR is where I want to be. I want to be successful here and I certainly don't want it to end like this.

"I made a big commitment coming over here and I'd like to get an opportunity to be successful."

"When I made the decision to come here (to NASCAR), I wasn't going to do the IndyCar thing anymore anyway, so this isn't a case of missing out on what could have been in IndyCar," he said. "That just wasn't a direction I wanted to go in. "Never say never, but it's unlikely I'll go back."

"We definitely struggled in the first couple of races, but we were getting there," Franchitti said. "The results have been this and that, but I really feel like we were getting there."

With a best finish of 22nd, yeah that is "getting there" alright.

"We were starting to run well, me and the No.40 guys all thought things were turning around."

Dario's misfortune has got him some sympathy from other drivers in the Sprint Cup garage.

"I think a couple things happened," Richard Childress Racing driver Jeff Burton said. "Dario is an accomplished racecar driver and I think he can get it done in the Cup Series, but it's going to take time. The question is, how patient can people be? And at a time when we don't have a lot of new sponsors coming in it's hard to build a company that wants to be patient. People that are wanting to make that investment want success right away.

"I think a lot of things stacked up against him and it made it harder for him than if he would have been able to have success sooner. Unfortunately Ganassi have been a little down, too. They haven't been as good as you would expect them to be."

"It's really shocking to us to see a team shut down like that, and it's tough," Roush Racing's Greg Biffle said. "You don't want to see that. Dario, I think, is a great driver. He's improved tremendously. He ran very well at Loudon, and qualified decently, but I don't know. Their organisation has been having a tough time competition-wise lately, and it's sad to see them without a sponsor and having to shut that down temporarily."

Four-time Sprint Cup champion Jeff Gordon believes the U.S. economy is to blame for Dario's bad luck.

"I think it's certainly a wake-up call, you know, any of us are vulnerable," Gordon said. "I would have never thought that they would have struggled getting sponsorship. I'm sure Chip Ganassi thought they wouldn't struggle. They probably didn't think they'd struggle on the racetrack as much as they have either, especially on the road course. We all can be vulnerable and it just makes you appreciate what you have, the sponsors you have, and it makes you work that much harder to try to stay competitive."

Plans about Dario's future may be announced next week, lets hope the boys at CGR aren't wearing rose-tinted glasses like Dario is.

Cup drivers sympathise with Franchitti [Autosport.com]

Franchitti says IndyCar return unlikely [Autosport.com]

40 team shuts down, Franchitti out of a ride

Chip Ganassi decided today to shut down his no 40 team laying off most of the employees on the team and leaving driver and former Indy 500 winner Dario Franchitti out of a ride. Ganassi reasons that lack of funds and sponsorship also with the lack of perfomance on all three of his teams were the reasons that Ganassi had to shut the team down.

"If I keep going I run the risk of dragging the other two teams down. I don't want to do that," Ganassi told the Associated Press. "There's no money. It makes no sense to be running this out of my pocket. I had to put a stop to it."

Franchitti had struggled greatly this year in Sprint Cup with a best finish of 22nd at Martinsville and a 41st place position in points. Ganassi said Franchitti was "disappointed" when told of the teams closing, but Ganassi hopes that Franchitti will still particpate in his Nationwide car until his Sprint Cup program is built it up. But there are rumors that Franchitti might go into sportscar racing in 2009.

Lack of Sponsorship forces Ganassi to shut down Franchitti's team [ESPN.com]

I'm baaaaaaaack, back in the saddle again

Chip Ganassi Racing continuing with the theme of video game sponsorship in the 2008 season will have Guitar Hero sponsor the #40 car driven by Dario Franchitti at New Hampshire in a couple of weeks. Rock band Aerosmith will also be on the car for the race which will certinally spring back memories of when the band did the theme song for ESPN's NASCAR coverage:



My God, Steven Tyler's face will give me nightmares tonight.

CGRFS Partners with Activision and Target to Sponsor No. 40 Dodge (CGRFS PR)

Is that Octane 93 you're wearing?

Jeremy Mayfield is back in a Sprint Cup car this weekend subbing for Dario Franchitti who is not quite ready to drive his Sprint Cup car, but will compete in the Nationwide Series race this weekend. That means Bryan Clauson who has been substituting for Franchitti in Nationwide Series will be driving Randy MacDonald's #81 Dodge this weekend.

Mayfield to compete for Franchtti in Best Buy 400 at Dover (Scenedaily.com)

Marlin to drive for Franchitti for another week

It looks like Dario Franchittti will sit out another week while recovering from his injuries in a Nationwide race at Talladega. So Sterling Marlin will drive the #40 Dodge at the Coca-Cola 600 next Sunday. "It's the same old thing -- drivers think they aren't that hurt when they're hurt," owner Chip Ganassi said. "They think they'll be back in a week, and so we all kind of said 'OK, great, it's going to be a week or two. I think he's starting to realize that it's not going to be that quick and it looks like Sterling Marlin is going to be driving the car here next week for the 600 and we're kind of taking it one day at a time after that."

Story courtesy of the AP.

40 team to sit out Sprint Showdown, to get "fit" for 600.

Dario Franchitti and the 40 team will choose to sit out this weekends Sprint Showdown as Franchitti continues to recover from his injuries he received in the Nationwide Race at Talladega. Franchitti has yet to be cleared to drive again and team is evaulating his condtion on a week-by-week basis.

Also, the 40 team will sporting a Nintendo Wii Fit scheme at the Coca-Cola 600 in two weeks.

Boy, I'm sure glad the Wii Fit is coming out, now children across America can still play video games and not have to bitched out by mom or dad. Gee, isn't technology magnificent.
Credit to Jayski and Chip Ganassi Racing.