Q. Dario, great race tonight. If you could talk about the call to take fuel only at the last pit stop.
DARIO FRANCHITTI: Absolutely. It was a difficult night for the Breathe Right car. It was okay, we just weren’t very fast. You know, I went from 2nd and a couple cars passed me, and then I was kind of searching around to see where the car was comfortable and in doing so got passed by quite a lot of people, and I managed to make some time up and get back up a bit and then got shuffled back, and I think we probably had a 5th place car.
And then with that last stop, it turns out it was Chris Simmons that made the call not to take the tires and give us track position. We saw how some of the other cars earlier in the race had been able to ‑‑ cars that were out of sequence had been running pretty close to the back all day had been able to stay up front. So they did that call, and they called off tires very late into the pit stop. I think I was three pits away when they called off the tires.
And my fueler Robby did a great job of getting the fuel in there, and I got out pretty quick.
And then from the restart I had a message saying that Dan is going to work with you if you give him some space where he needed space on a certain part of the track, and so Dan was great and just pushed me along a little bit, just ‑‑ and that was helping him, too. We worked very well, managed to stay inch perfect for those last 25 laps, used the overtake for the last seven, I think, and that was it. So great turnaround from about halfway through the race.
Q. Dario, you’re only back 23 points now three races to go, so you’ve got to feel like you can grab this thing now.
DARIO FRANCHITTI: Well, I think we saw tonight, we see how quickly these things can change, especially on these one‑and‑a‑half‑mile tracks. We’re just going to keep going. It would have been easy to give up halfway through the race there when we were running in sort of 10th or whatever, and that’s how you get it done, and I’m lucky to be part of Team Target. I’ve been on the receiving end of getting beaten from them sometimes when they managed to pull things out of seemingly nowhere, so it was nice to be on the end of actually winning the thing tonight.
It’s far from over on both sides. Will did a good job tonight, and I guess there was a mistake on the amount of fuel put in. Yeah, it’s going to be interesting these last three.
Q. Did you think as you were moving back and forth that everyone was driving fairly clean? It appeared from where we were it wasn’t that bad, but then there was a couple of people that said it wasn’t as good as I thought it was.
DARIO FRANCHITTI: Yeah, quantify bad. That’s the trouble with this style of racing sometimes. Sometimes it’s either how brave or how stupid you want to be. And there were some very nice moves made out there, and there was some bloody stupid moves made out there, and there was also just some misunderstandings out there. Sometimes it’s not what you do or the person next to you, it’s the person three up or something, or the back markers. The back markers were not being very helpful at all, the usual suspects. I shouldn’t really be surprised with one of them for sure.
When you’re three wide and you come across a car doing 20 miles an hour less than you, it certainly gets your attention. When you’re three wide and three rows deep, look out. Yeah, as I say, it was ‑‑ I’m just glad everybody got out of here in one piece tonight.
Q. This win might not have been as dramatic for you as the one in ‘07 where you got it on the last lap and won the whole thing, but this race may not be here next year; they may go somewhere else to deal with the contract, and there isn’t one yet. Would you miss Chicagoland or races of this type?
DARIO FRANCHITTI: I’m not a big fan of ‑‑ not the track; there’s nothing wrong with this track. It just doesn’t ‑‑ I don’t like the style of racing our cars put on here. There’s nothing wrong with the track at all; great track, great fans. But yeah, I much prefer more if it’s in the driver’s hands.
But at the same time, this track has been bloody good to me, there’s no doubt about it. And tonight, again, this one feels really special for some reason, just because we pulled it out from nowhere. It feels pretty good.
Q. Do you feel about this style of racing kind of the way some of the NASCAR guys feel about restrictor plates? Do you have any experience with that?
DARIO FRANCHITTI: Yeah, I guess it is like restrictor plate racing. That’s probably a good analogy, you know, on various tracks. You know, a lot of the one‑and‑a‑half‑mile tracks now become more handling tracks; Homestead, for instance. But with the nature and the big banking of this surface, this track and this surface produces good grip. But it produces that ‑‑ I was going to say two wide, but there was times it was three and four wide tonight. It puts on a great show. The fans, I think, really love it. I’d just like a bit more control, I guess, to be in the driver’s hands.
Q. Do you like the short tracks like at Iowa and when you ran at Richmond? Do you like those short ‑‑ and the Milwaukee Mile? Do you like those better?
DARIO FRANCHITTI: Oh, yeah, I’m a big fan of the short track. Iowa has been a great track. It drives almost like a Superspeedway, though. The more it ages, the more it drives like a short track, places like Milwaukee, Richmond, Loudon next year is going to be great, Phoenix, as well. Again, I don’t think there’s any bad tracks, it’s just our cars are not suited to some tracks. It’s just an unfortunate fact of life. The cars are maybe too quick. The tracks weren’t designed with our cars in mind maybe.
Q. If you could just kind of forecast the next three races, because ‑‑
DARIO FRANCHITTI: No. What do you want me to say? Come on.
Q. Going back to how you’ve done at Kentucky and Motegi and how you’ve done at Homestead.
DARIO FRANCHITTI: I don’t know, it’s so difficult. Yeah, it’s going to be a fight. I think it’s going to be a fight to the wire. The Penske team are very, very strong. Will is doing a good job. He’s learning quickly. You know, we’re well aware of what the Target Team can do and how great they are. Trust me, I’ll be pedaling as hard as I can.
| 
|