A second wheel failure in two days put paid to Dario Franchitti's bid for victory in Sunday's Chevy 500k at the Texas Motor Speedway and also resulted in a nasty looking accident between him and Alex Barron.
After starting the 2004 season finale in his back-up car from the rear of the grid following a wheel failure in Saturday practice, Franchitti suffered the exact same problem just 15 laps from the end of the 200-lap event while racing with the lead pack.
As the pack entered turn three on the 1.5-mile tri-oval, Franchitti's #27 Andretti-Green Racing Dallara-Honda suddenly snapped sideways and began to spin backwards into the outside wall. Running directly behind the Scotsman, Red Bull Cheever Racing's Barron had nowhere to go and slammed into Franchitti's spinning machine before heading for the outside wall at nearly 200mph.
While Franchitti's car stayed on four wheels, Barron's car was lifted onto its two left hand wheels and remained pinned between Franchitti and the wall for several hundred metres, with Barron's head just inches from the concrete.
Thankfully Barron suffered only a chipped bone in his left foot and a slight concussion.
“It looks like we had exactly the same mechanical failure on the back of the car as yesterday,” said the Scotsman, who was classified 15th. “The first thing is that I hope Alex (Barron) is okay. I'm just completely upset that the same thing has happened twice this weekend; two mechanical failures resulting in my ending up in the wall twice. I'm not happy about that at all.”
Franchitti concludes the season sixth in the point standings with 409, 36 points shy of fifth-place Adrian Fernandez.
“This wasn't one of our more stellar races,” added team general manager Kyle Moyer. “The ArcaEx car was running okay and we were trying to get to the front, which was very difficult. We got pushed up the track a bit and that put us to the back again. We were just working our way towards the front, there wasn't much race left and the same thing that happened in practice happened again today - we broke a wheel.”
