TK Takes Kentucky, Relishes Role Of Chaser; Dario Flies High Again

SPARTA, Ky. — Tony Kanaan won for the second-straight week to score a series-leading fourth IndyCar season victory in Saturday night’s Meijer Indy 300, but Dario Franchitti ran into the back of Kosuke Matsuura after the checkered flag and his car went airborne for the second week in a row.
Franchitti was once again uninjured after his frightening flight, where his car did a complete 360-degree flip, but an earlier mistake may prove costly in the battle for the IndyCar Series title.
Franchitti, who had dropped to eighth place after losing ground on the track, tried to enter pit road for his final stop with 20 laps to go, but he drove off pit lane attempting to avoid running into Danica Patrick. Franchitti’s car took out the pylon on pit lane that marks where drivers have to slow down, breaking the front wing on Franchitti’s ride.
His crew as able to quickly replace the broken part and send him back onto the track, but he had dropped to the last car on the lead lap.
“That was completely my fault. There’s no excuse,” a stunned Franchitti said. “I screwed up twice in the race. I screwed up once coming out of the pits and then after the checkered, Kosuke lifted and I didn’t realize it was checkered. I got the ‘Hey, it’s a checkered’ just as I was hitting him.
“I’m pretty disgusted with myself right now for that. For my mistakes today and again it could have been a big one. I’m glad I’m OK.”
The race winner had to take a shot at his teammate for his second-straight flight in an IndyCar race.
“Obviously having Dario flying again, it wasn’t really good,” Kanaan said. “I thought we were going to fly out of here because he’s a helicopter pilot, but not that way.”
To make matters worse, AGR teammate Patrick spun out leaving pit road to bring out the third caution period of the race.  After Patrick’s car restarted, she lost control under caution, slammed into the second-turn wall and nearly hit the safety vehicle on the track inspecting the course under yellow.
“On pit exit, I was leaving with hot tires, we didn’t change them and I was not even flat out,” Patrick said. “I was lifting and usually on pit out, even on cold tires, we should pretty much be flat. It just went, it just spun, then after we got going there was such a flat spot and blister on the right rear that the tire blew.”
Franchitti finished eighth before crashing after the race concluded. With Scott Dixon finishing second, he is now just eight points behind Franchitti in the battle for the championship with just three races to go.  Kanaan is 52 points out of first place.
“The big picture is we have to stay in front of Dario, but TK is finishing ahead of us and is closing the gap,” Dixon said. “We need to keep that from happening. It’s going to be tough. The two guys we are fighting at the moment are going to be very tough to beat.
“We definitely don’t need (Kanaan) winning any more, so we’ve definitely got to try to put that to a stop.”
A.J. Foyt IV scored a career-best third-place finish, as all three Vision Racing drivers finished in the top 10.  Marco Andretti finished fourth and Vision’s Tomas Scheckter fifth. The third Vision driver, Ed Carpenter, was seventh.
“The team is really coming together,” Foyt said. “This is our first year to work together with my engineer, and he is just starting to learn what I like and what I don’t like. They have given me a decent car all year long, but today’s car I could do whatever I wanted to with it.”
Kanaan’s victory was the 11th of his IndyCar career. He led six times for 131 laps in the 200-lap race but more importantly, he believes he has a legitimate shot at the title with three races remaining.
“At Indianapolis, nobody was talking about Dario and Dixon and they finished 1-2,” Kanaan said. “Everybody is now talking about Dario and Dixon and nobody is talking about me so I like that.  From now on, they are being chased by me.”