When Dario Franchitti won the 91st Indianapolis 500 on May 27, the driver from Edinburgh, Scotland became the first Scotsman since Jim Clark in 1965 to win the fabled race.
By winning Sunday’s Peak Antifreeze Indy 300 presented by Mr. Clean at Chicagoland Speedway, Franchitti became the first Scotsman to win the IndyCar Series title.
“I don’t think if I was on this earth for five lifetimes I could ever one-up Jim Clark,” Franchitti said after Sunday’s title-clinching win. “He’s my hero. Joie Chitwood (the president of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway) came up and gave me a pin from one of the badges to get in the pit lane from 1965. And the serial number was 1127, which I thought was pretty cool.”
The number 11 belongs to his Andretti Green Racing teammate and best friend Tony Kanaan while Franchitti’s car is No. 27.
Maybe it was in the numbers for Franchitti as this championship victory is the culmination of his IndyCar career, likely to draw notice in his Scottish hometown.
“I don’t know what the reaction will be back home,” Franchitti said. “There was a big reaction to the Indianapolis 500 win. I enjoy when people appreciate when we do a good job. But the main reason I do it is because I enjoy it, not because of what people write or think.”
Franchitti’s IndyCar championship was not only a triumph on the track but it was a victory over adversity on his own racing team.
The driver who has operated on a year-to-year contract with Andretti Green Racing appeared to be on his way to the championship after racking up a 65-point lead by the beginning of July. But after Scott Dixon began a hot streak that saw him accumulate three-straight wins that month, Franchitti began to falter on the race track.
In two-straight races at Michigan and Kentucky, Franchitti’s day ended with his car flying through the air in horrifying crashes. He was able to survive those flips but began to fall out of favor with Andretti Green team owners Michael Andretti and Kevin Savoree.
Franchitti, who demands a high-price when it comes to contracts, drew a cold response from the team owners for a deal for next year. Meantime, Franchitti began to pursue other options outside of IndyCar, including interest from NASCAR team owners Richard Childress and Chip Ganassi.
Ironically, Ganassi owns the IndyCar team featuring Franchitti’s championship contender.
While Franchitti would not confirm the move to NASCAR, other sources confirmed that he has a five-year offer with Canadian Club as the sponsor.
Dixon said Sunday morning that Ganassi had talked to him about Franchitti taking over the No. 40 Dodge currently driven by David Stremme, who will vacate that ride at the end of this season.
 Franchitti had fallen into disfavor with Andretti, especially after he was blamed for crashing his son, Marco Andretti, at Infineon Raceway two weeks ago.
Those distractions would have affected a lesser man, but not Franchitti.
“Honestly, that stuff was not a factor,” Franchitti said. “For me, the biggest mental challenge this year was jumping in the car in Kentucky having just flipped the thing five days earlier in Michigan. And I think we were actually the quickest in that first session in Kentucky and were running side-by-side with Dan Wheldon (the man who flipped him in the crash at Michigan) again.
“To get over that barrier, I thought if I could do that I should be OK with anything that’s thrown at me and it worked out very well.”
Sunday was a chance to celebrate a championship for the driver who admits it was the final piece of his IndyCar career; that if he never drives in another IndyCar race, he has accomplished all of his goals in this form of racing.
And he accomplished the two biggest goals in the same season by winning the Indianapolis 500 and the IndyCar Series title.
“Those are two of the goals I definitely set for myself a long time ago when I came over here,” Franchitti said. “I set my goal to win every race, obviously. And then when I came to the IndyCar Series, the Indy 500 was a big goal. And the championship, to accomplish both of those is massive.”