Race 2 Win: Sprint Cup Series Race Notes

Sprint Cup Series

Auto Club 500 - Dario Franchitti Notes

Dario Franchitti
California Speedway Advance Notes

Race: Auto Club 500 on Sunday, February 24 (NSCS)
Track: California Speedway (2 miles)
Location: Fontana, Calif.

Dario Franchitti and No. 40 Target Dodge Team (NSCS) and No. 40 Fastenal Dodge Team (NNS)

NOTES

Late Late Show: On Wednesday, Franchitti was a guest on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on CBS. Tom Selleck and Ziggy Marley joined him on the show. Franchitti toured the LA market earlier in the week and also made a stop on The Best Damn Sports Show Period as part of a media tour on behalf of NASCAR Cup Series title sponsor, Sprint.

All in the Family: Did you know Franchitti’s younger brother Marino is also a race car driver? The 29-year-old resides in London and will contest the full American Le Mans Series season in the LMP2 category for Dyson Racing, alongside co-driver Butch Leitzinger.

Cementing His Status: Sunday morning at 9:30 AM ET Franchitti will be inducted into the California Speedway Walk of Fame. Franchitti, who won the last open wheel race held at the track (IndyCar, 2005) will dip his racing boots in fresh concrete in the traditional ceremony.

Starting on the Right Foot: Franchitti and his No. 40 Fastenal NNS teammates put forth an impressive qualifying effort last Friday at Daytona International Speedway. Initially, they grabbed the pole with their trial laps around the 2.5-mile superspeedway. By session close, they were fourth on the starting grid. Franchitti has been a strong qualifier out of the gate since he first climbed into a stock car last fall. His first run in a stock car, which was the ARCA Re/Max Series race at Talladega Superspeedway last October resulted in a sixth-place start. He then followed up with a third-place starting position in his NNS debut, which took place at the Memphis (Tenn.) Motorsports Park last October, as well. Altogether, he scored one top-five and two top-10 starts out of four NNS efforts last season.

QUOTES
Topic: Give us your thoughts on running the first CoT race on an intermediate-sized race track
Dario Franchitti: “I think the biggest challenge is finding the limits of the car, not overdriving the car, not underdriving the car, driving the car free enough that it's going to be quick over a long run, getting used to the compromises of driving the car. And that's before you even go into the race and get used to the new style of racing. How physical the races are, as far as people bumping into each other, that kind of stuff. Again, somewhere like Fontana in an IndyCar, there's one, maybe two lines. In the stock car, there's guys running the white lines, they're guys running up against the wall, all these different things.”

CHASSIS INFO
No. 40 Target Dodge (NSCS): Chassis #746, which was previously tested at California and Las Vegas this year.