Indianapolis 500, Indy, 2007, Dario Franchitti, Johnny Rutherford, Helio Castroneves, Sam Hornish Jr., Scott Dixon, Dan Wheldon, Tony Kanaan, Danica Patrick
Season review
little bit and hindered our pit strategy, but the
car was absolutely fantastic and I really
enjoyed that race.”
Kanaan certainly looked like a contender in
the early part of the season, and indeed turned
out to be, although at times during the season
he could have easily been counted out.
For Dixon and Franchitti, it was a period of
searching for form. Dixon scored a couple of
seconds and a pair of fourths, a pattern that
continued for a while, much to his frustration.
Franchitti, on the other hand, was improving
his finishing position every race, starting with a
seventh at Homestead. Perhaps what
happened next was inevitable given Franchitti’s
pattern, but going into Indianapolis, Wheldon
was solidly in the lead by 27 points over his
Target Chip Ganassi Racing teammate, Dixon.
SECOND QUARTER: INDY, MILWAUKEE,
TEXAS AND IOWA
TOP SCORER: DARIO FRANCHITTI
Often an Indianapolis 500 victory has set
the stage for a title run, the last two years being
good examples. For Franchitti, winning a wild,
rain-interrupted and shortened 91st
Indianapolis 500 – his first win since the season
finale in 2005 – certainly gave him a boost.
“Indy is the biggest race in the world, one of
the top three for sure,” Franchitti says. “To win
that…since I’ve been in Indy cars, that’s been
the big goal. The feelings were extraordinary.
At that point, when I’m at Indianapolis for the
month, I don’t think about the championship, I
just think about Indianapolis. You’re just so
focused on that one race. With the rain delay,
the emotion of thinking we’d finished fifth,
the cut tire, it was just a fantastic day. Full of
ups and downs, but it ended the right way, at
least for me.”
Notes IndyCar Series pace car driver Johnny
Rutherford, himself a three-time 500 winner
“We have no
rhyme or
reason to why
we suddenly
lost pace”
Dan Wheldon
(Above) Helio
Castroneves was the
main man when it
came to qualifying,
but was able to
climb only one fence
this year, at St.
Petersburg. (Below)
The drama-filled
Indy 500 propelled
Franchitti into the
title hunt
and an open-wheel champion: “It started the
chase to the points lead, so it all kind of began,
as always, around Indianapolis and what
happens there.”
Castroneves and teammate Sam Hornish Jr.
certainly looked formidable at Indy, with
Castroneves claiming the pole in the final
minutes of pole day to bump Franchitti off the
top of the pylon. Both were charging at the
end, and could have certainly been contenders
had the race run the full 200 laps.
For Dixon, it was another second-place
finish. His teammate, however, discovered that
just as momentum can be created at the
Speedway, it can be broken there as well.
Gavin Lawrence/Getty Images
“One of the biggest lows of my career was
Indianapolis,” says the 2005 winner and
IndyCar Series champion. “To start the month so
dominant, especially the first three days, you
would expect the month to continue along that
route. But the biggest frustration for me was the
fact that we have no grasp, no rhyme or reason
to why we suddenly lost pace, and we still don’t.
For me, that race is the be-all and end-all, and
to be so disappointing there has not been good.”
In fact, he never regained top form after that.
Tony Kanaan could be forgiven had his
disappointment at Indy derailed his season.
Leading when the first rain shower hit, he might
have easily been declared the winner. When the
race restarted, he continued to dominate until
an unfortunate series of events left him in 12th.
“The momentum led up to Indy really well,”
says Kanaan. “I won one race before
Indianapolis and then I won Milwaukee.
Although I was very happy that Dario had won
the race…I don’t think I felt it until we got to
Iowa. Winning Milwaukee was a good
comeback, and at Texas I finished second, but
when we got to Iowa, it really started to bug
me, what happened to me in Indy.”
Kanaan may have enjoyed the Milwaukee
Mile, but for Castroneves it was a different story.
He scored another of his seven 2007 poles and
dominated until his rear wing collapsed, sending
him spinning into the wall. Kanaan took over and
won the race with Franchitti carrying his Indy
momentum to a second-place finish. Dixon
finished fourth, the sixth race in which he’d
finished there or two spots better.
At Texas Motor Speedway, Kanaan was
again pursuing a Team Penske car for most of
the race, but this time it was Hornish. Even
with Danica Patrick trying to provide a push to
her teammate, Kanaan had no real challenge
for the 2006 champion. Franchitti finished
fourth in a line of Andretti Green Racing cars,
Dan R. Boyd/LAT
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