Dario back to what he does best
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
Dario Franchitti returns to the IRL next year as Scott Dixon’s team-mate in Chip Ganassi’s squad. Franchitti left the IRL at the end of 2007 to try NASCAR with Ganassi (above), but he struggled and Chip couldn’t sell any serious sponsorship on his car. In fact, Ganassi is having a tough time keeping his NASCAR sponsors, with long-time backer Texaco terminating its support of Juan Pablo Montoya at the end of this year. Montoya has other sponsors, but the Colombian has endured a difficult second season, falling outside the top 20 in the NASCAR points.
Earlier this year Ganassi parked Franchitti and laid off 70 NASCAR employees. Then Dan Wheldon had a string of uninspiring IRL races and Ganassi decided not to renew his contract and bring back Franchitti. With street circuits like Long Beach, Toronto and Surfers Paradise joining the IRL calendar the move had great appeal to Dario, and Chip will have the two most recent Indy 500 winners and IRL champions showcasing his team as main sponsor Target and Ganassi celebrate their 20th anniversary as partners.
Ganassi has also had a great year in the Rolex Grand-Am sports car series where Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas clinched Chip’s third series title. Expect Dixon, Franchitti and Montoya to join them in a pair of Lexus-Rileys for January’s Rolex 24 hours at Daytona, where the team is a three-time winner.
It’ll be like ‘old home week’, as always.