Franchitti Takes Victory in Season Finale at California

FONTANA, Calif. (Oct. 16, 2005) - ArcaEx driver Dario Franchitti drove to his second victory of the 2005 season, this one coming in Sunday's running of the Indy Racing LeagueŽ IndyCarŽ Series California Indy 400 at California Speedway, the final event of the 2005 IndyCar Series season. His victory, coupled with Team 7-Eleven teammate Tony Kanaan's second-place finish, gave Andretti Green Racing its fourth '1-2' finish of the season.

Starting from the pole position, the Scotsman led the initial three laps then settled into a top-five position before assuming the front-running position by the 140-lap mark. With brief exception he paced the remainder of the race, leading a total of 68 laps, and held off his hard-charging teammate at the line.

Trailing Franchitti and Kanaan were Vitor Meira in third, Scott Sharp fourth and Sam Hornish Jr. in fifth.

Franchitti concludes the season fourth in the championship points race with 498 points while AGR secured three of the top-four positions in the series championship with Wheldon (629) and Kanaan (548) placing first and second respectively.

The 2006 IndyCar Series season opens on Sunday, March 26, at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Dario Franchitti, #27 ArcaEx Dallara/Honda/Firestone: "This is a bittersweet win because I lost a good friend here six years ago. It was important for me to win here today for several reasons. Tony and I battled all day, and this is a great way to finish the season. For Tony to have helped me out at the end really means a lot. There's more to racing than kicking the heck out of your teammate; you have to work as a team and we proved that today."

Kyle Moyer, General Manager, Andretti Green Racing: "This was a great way to end the season. The ArcaEx team hasn't had the best of luck this year, but to get a '1-2' finish in the final race of the season is fantastic. This just caps off what has been a fantastic championship season for AGR."

        2005 California Indy 400 Results
 Pos.     Name                           Laps        
 1      Dario Franchitti                 200       
 2      Tony Kanaan                      200                             
 3      Vitor Meira                      200                     
 4      Scott Sharp                      200           
 5      Sam Hornish Jr.                  200           
 6      Dan Wheldon                      200           
 7      Tomas Scheckter                  200           
 8      Tomas Enge                       200           
 9      Helio Castroneves                200          
 10     Scott Dixon                      200          
 11     Bryan Herta                      200          
 12     Buddy Rice                       199
 13     Jimmy Kite                       199 
 14     Alex Barron                      199  
 15     Patrick Carpentier               199 
 16     Roger Yasukawa                   198
 17     Jaques Lazier                    184
 18     Danica Patrick                   184
 19     Kosuke Matsuura                  168 
 20     Ed Carpenter                     133 
 21     A.J. Foyt IV                      30 
 22     Thiago Medeiros                    0