Rear-view mirror
Robert Laberge/Getty
26 IndyCarSeries 2007 winterspecial
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DARIO FRANCHITTI
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Goals achieved,
Dario feels free to
try new pursuits in
motorsports
END OF A
In a different world, one might never
career ; in this one, nobody expected t
By Jeff Olson
ack in the heat of the season, in the
heat of Richmond, the rumor stood up
Band
found its legs. If you believed the
buzz, Sam Hornish Jr. was about to leave his
open-wheel days behind and climb through
the window of a stock car. After much
hemming and hawing and partial denials and
delays in the official announcement, he did it,
moving across the shop floor at Penske Racing
headquarters in Charlotte to the stock car side.
NASCAR was never really a secret with Sam
Hornish Jr. The moment word leaked in 2003
that he might be joining Roger Penske’s team,
the assumption took on a life of its own.
Eventually it happened, and Hornish is
preparing for the Daytona 500, not the Indy
500, in 2008.
But he’ll always carry a piece of Indy
with him.
“I could always go home and retire or do
whatever I wanted to do and know that I won
the Indianapolis 500,” he says wistfully. “It
was 100 times more than I ever thought I was
going to accomplish in my life, and I can be
proud of that.”
Meanwhile, Dario Franchitti also is heading
to NASCAR, but he took an altogether different
tack to arrive there. His interest in NASCAR was
played close to the vest, and when news
leaked before the IndyCar Series finale in
September that he was on the verge of signing
with Chip Ganassi – his rival in open wheel – it
was greeted with stunned silence. Dario
Franchitti, Indy 500 winner and the man who
was about to claim the IndyCar Series
championship, the guy who seemingly had no
interest in NASCAR, was about to put a roof
over his head.
“I can’t think of a better way to sign off of a
Michael L. Levitt/LAT
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