TOYOTA INDY 400: FRANCHITTI TAKES CONTROVERSIAL WIN.Byline: Tim Haddock Staff Writer FONTANA - Dario Franchitti will go down as the last winner of an Indy car race at California Speedway. Or will he? Franchitti held off a surging Tony Kanaan, his Andretti Green Racing Andretti Green Racing is an auto racing team that competes in the IRL IndyCar Series and the American Le Mans Series. Early years in CART Founded in 1993 by Barry Green and Gerry Forsythe as Forsythe Green Racing teammate, to win Sunday's Toyota Indy 400 at California Speedway, the final race of the Indy Racing League The Indy Racing League, better known as IRL, is the sanctioning body of a predominantly American based open-wheel racing series. The League consists of two series, the premiere IndyCar Series season. But a suspicious hiccup hiccup or hiccough, involuntary spasmodic contraction of the diaphragm followed by a sharp intake of air, which is abruptly stopped by a sudden, involuntary closing of the glottis (opening between the vocal cords); the consequent blocking of air by Kanaan's car on the final turn of the race gave Franchitti the win. Questions followed about how Kanaan could have such an unfortunate loss of power at the finish line. ``It was a shame,'' said Kanaan, driver of the No. 11 Honda-powered entry. ``I don't know Don't know (DK, DKed) "Don't know the trade." A Street expression used whenever one party lacks knowledge of a trade or receives conflicting instructions from the other party. what happened. When I went to upshift up·shift intr.v. up·shift·ed, up·shift·ing, up·shifts To shift a motor vehicle into a higher gear. up , obviously I was upshifting and downshifting down·shift v. down·shift·ed, down·shift·ing, down·shifts v.intr. 1. To shift a motor vehicle into a lower gear. 2. To reduce the speed, rate, or intensity of something. 3. , and something hit me. ``Thank God my teammate won. If it was going to be somebody else, I was going to be really mad. Probably missed a shift or something like that. That's the way it is.'' Kanaan denied easing up at the end to let Franchiti win the race. Franchitti was appreciative of Kanaan's misfortune. Both seemed equally happy with the result and Franchitti said there were no team orders for Kanaan to let him win the race. ``I wish there were,'' said Franchitti, driver of the No. 27 Honda-powered entry. ``We certainly talked about what we could do to help each other, but with (Sam) Hornish doing so well, it didn't come to that. I couldn't leapfrog him and he couldn't leapfrog Tony. It was a good team effort.'' But the race could have been remembered for so much more. It was perhaps the final Indy car race at California Speedway. The IRL 1. (jargon, chat) IRL - In real life. Generally synonymous with f2f. 2. (language, robotics) IRL - Industrial Robot Language. is not returning to the speedway in 2006 and it looks like it won't be a part of the IRL schedule for some time. It was Franchitti's second win of the year and the 11th of the season for Andretti Green Racing. But Franchitti and his wife, Ashley Judd, took time to remember Greg Moore, a close friend of Franchitti's who died in a race accident at California Speedway in 1999. Both made tear-filled mention of Moore after Franchitti took the checkered flag, after a race that saw rookie Danica Patrick lead for two laps, that saw Dan Wheldon out front with a chance to win a record seven races in one season, that saw Tomas Scheckter give Chevrolet a shot to leave the IRL on a winning note, that saw Kanaan finish second by a fraction of second for the second year in a row. ``We all worked well together,'' Franchitti said. ``You can help people around here. A bittersweet bittersweet, name for two unrelated plants, belonging to different families, both fall-fruiting woody vines sometimes cultivated for their decorative scarlet berries. win here because I lost a good friend here six years ago.'' |
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