Klein Tools/Canadian Club 2006 Firestone Indy 200 Fact Sheet
July 11, 2006 Indianapolis, Ind. Klein Tools/Canadian Club Driver Dario Franchitti 2006 Firestone Indy 200 Fact Sheet Who: #27 Klein Tools/Canadian Club Dallara/Honda/Firestone driver Dario Franchitti What: Firestone Indy 200, Round 9 of the Indy Racing League® IndyCar® Series Where: Nashville Superspeedway, Lebanon, Tenn. When: Saturday, July 15, 2006 Television: ESPN (Live), 9 p.m. (EDT) Dario Franchitti on the Firestone Indy 200: "Nashville is a difficult track. With the concrete surface, you have to get the setup right. It's difficult to pass there so when you get a chance to pass, you have to make it stick. I have a lot of good memories from last year. It means a lot to win anywhere but I had a lot of friends and family in the stands last year and that made it very special. I'm really looking forward to coming back here and trying to win again. Since I've been coming here, the stands have been full every year. In the past, Nashville has been NASCAR country but now the IndyCar Series is the biggest race on the schedule." Dario Franchitti Facts Franchitti won the 2005 Firestone Indy 200, his third career IndyCar Series win, after starting fourth. He is currently eighth in the IndyCar Series driver championship. He is only one point out of seventh place and 31 points out of sixth. He recorded his best finish of the 2006 season with a third-place result at Richmond. Franchitti scored a fourth-place finish at the 1.5-mile oval at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Franchitti collected his fourth career IndyCar Series win in 2005 at the season finale in California. He finished fourth in the 2005 driver point standings with 498 points, his highest IndyCar Series finish. The Scotsman had eight top-five and 13 top-10 finishes and led 448 laps in 2005. He has recorded three career IndyCar Series pole positions, those coming at Texas (June 10, 2004), California (Oct. 16, 2005) and St. Petersburg (April 2, 2006). Three of Franchitti's four IndyCar Series victories have come on tracks of 1.33 miles or smaller, including the 1-mile ovals at Milwaukee (2004) and Pikes Peak (2004) and the 1.33-mile Nashville track (2005). His fourth victory came on the two-mile D-shaped oval at California Speedway (2005). Franchitti has 14 major open-wheel racing victories and 14 career pole positions. Since 1998, Franchitti has won more American major open-wheel races than all but four drivers. Dario Franchitti IndyCar Series Statistics Top Top Laps Starts Wins 5 10 Poles Led Pts (Rk) Earnings 2006 8 0 2 3 1 14 175 (8th) $681,755 Career 45 4 16 26 3 811 $3,372,865 John Anderson, Team Manager, #27 Klein Tools/Canadian Club Dallara/Honda/Firestone on the Firestone Indy 200: "Nashville can be a complicated track because of the concrete, so it's important for us to get the right setup from the beginning of the weekend. Dario knows how to win at this track and we had a lot of success at Richmond, which is another tight track, so I expect the Klein Tools/Canadian Club car to have a good result at Nashville."