SPARTA, Ky. — Jim Clark may have been the first to earn the nickname “The Flying Scot” when he was winning Formula One races and the 1965 Indianapolis 500, but this year’s Indy winner, Dario Franchitti, is taking that nickname to a new level. Make that, altitude. Franchitti went on a wild flight for the second IndyCar race in a row, but his latest effort was all his fault. Franchitti crashed after the checkered flag waved in Saturday night’s Meijer Indy 300 at Kentucky Speedway. When he slammed into the back of Japan’s Kosuke Matsuura, it launched Franchitti’s car for the second time in as many races, only this time it did a 360-degree flip before landing on its wheels. Franchitti went on a wild flight in the Aug. 5 IndyCar race at Michigan Int’l Speedway when Dan Wheldon ran into the side of his car at the front of the field, which sent Franchitti 35 feet into the air before landing upside-down. Six other cars were involved in that crash, and Franchitti blamed Wheldon as the launch controller. But after Saturday night’s incident, Franchitti was embarrassed at his own mistake, leading some to wonder, “I thought the Reno Air Show was in Nevada?” Franchitti holds a pilot’s license and flew his helicopter from his home near Nashville, Tenn., to Kentucky Speedway. He would like to keep his flying time limited to the chopper, however, rather than his race car. “I heard ‘checkered’ just after I hit Kosuke,” Franchitti said. “He slowed down rightly after the race, I didn’t realize it was the checkered and I hit him. It was completely my mistake. The second one I made in the race. I’m really upset with myself right now.” According to Franchitti’s spotter, David Reininger, it is not common practice for the spotter to call checkered when it’s clear that the flagman is waving the checkered flag to signal the end of the race. Franchitti’s first mistake was entering the pits with 21 laps left in the race when he locked up the brakes on the bumpy surface and his front wing took out a pylon that marks the beginning of the pit lane speed limit. It smashed the front wing and his crew had to replace the damaged part, which dropped him to eighth place. Franchitti had led 52 laps in the 200-lap race and appeared to be one of the drivers that could end in victory lane. But after he lost momentum in a pack of traffic that dropped him to eighth, his pit-road crash doomed his chances at victory. “The second one, the big one, was no one’s fault but my own,” Franchitti said. “We were the last car on the lead lap, and we finished eighth anyway. “I thought to myself, ‘Oh no, not again.’ I’m pretty disgusted with myself right now. Last week, I made myself clear on who caused the incident, but this week the blame is all on me. I have to apologize to my team, to Kosuke’s team as well. I have to do a better job than I did tonight.” His once-large 65-point lead shrunk to just eight points over Scott Dixon with three races to go. “Points are points,” Franchitti said. “It was going to be a dogfight to the end anyway, but then I go make a mistake and lose those points. It’s going to be tough now.” And with Dixon just eight points back, he plans on making Franchitti wish his flight had been delayed. “We did a fantastic job in the pits, and that enabled us to jump in front of the two AGR cars, but we kept Dario behind us which was the main thing,” Dixon said. “It was one of their nights to lose, and it looks like they lost it. I can’t believe Danica Patrick spun out coming out of the pits and then crashed under yellow. That’s unbelievable. “I know we made good gains in the points today, and that’s what this is all about. The pressure is on now and we’re happy with where we are at right now.”