Dario Franchitti finds himself running on empty - then straight to Victory Lane at Indy 500

With a little gas, and luck, Franchitti wins Indy

INDIANAPOLIS — How far can you make it on 1.6 gallons of fuel, going 200 mph at the Indianapolis 500?

“I have no idea,” car owner Chip Ganassi said.

Lucky for him and his driver, Dario Franchitti, it didn’t matter.

Running on empty, Franchitti was able to slow down and cross the finish line under a yellow flag after a spectacular accident on the last lap Sunday sent Mike Conway’s car flying through the air and prevented fast-closing Dan Wheldon from a last-second try for the win.

Ganassi became the first owner to win at NASCAR’s Daytona 500 and the Indy 500 in the same season.

Franchitti won his second Indy 500 in four years with the best car and the best game plan to go along with his good fortune. Both his victories have come without real racing at the finish line — his win in 2007 was locked down after the race was called because of rain after 166 laps.

“You have to be prepared for all eventualities there,” Ganassi said. “We had to play that game being the leader to keep those guys behind us, but also stay in front of them to make it to the finish.”

They made it, but not by much, eking out the final 37 laps with Franchitti’s crew giving him steady — and sometimes not so friendly — reminders to stop pushing the pedal to the floor. His speed, which topped out above 224 mph, kept getting slower and slower as the race wound down — 210 mph, then 209 and 206.

All the while, Wheldon kept narrowing the gap, and a final-lap showdown appeared inevitable. Would the 1.6 gallons left in Franchitti’s tank be enough to stave off a late charge from the 2005 champion, who hadn’t led a lap on the circuit all season?

That one will remain a mystery because behind the leaders, Ryan Hunter-Reay ran out of fuel himself, then slowed to a halt and knocked Conway’s car in the air, sending it flipping upside down, slamming against the wall, then barely missing Hunter-Reay’s head as it plummeted to the ground.

A scary scene in which Conway’s broken left leg, thankfully, turned out to be the worst injury.

And one that set up Franchitti’s second trip to kiss the bricks at racing’s most hallowed track.

Holding on for this win, he said, took a good amount of self-control.

“It’s much easier when you’re just running wide open,” Franchitti said. “But that’s part of it. Strategy is part of racing, whether it’s IndyCar racing, stock car racing, sports car racing, you have to find the best way to get to the finish line.”

His wife, actress Ashley Judd, covered her head with her arm and watched anxiously as the traffic slowed down when the yellow flag came out, wondering if her guy had enough fuel to make it. He did and she ran down pit road to meet him in Victory Lane.

Wheldon, also using fuel-conserving tactics, finished second for the second straight year, followed by Marco Andretti, England’s Alex Lloyd and Scott Dixon.

“Maybe if I was young, I would have totally ignored them, tried to run Dario down when I saw him slowing down,” Wheldon said. “Just one of those things.”

In sixth was Danica Patrick, who ended a difficult week with a modest success. She started 23rd after a bad qualifying round that ended with fans booing her after listening to her complain about her car.

This time, all she had to offer was praise for her team. She has finished in the top 10 in five of her six Indy 500s.

“I’m very happy with the result, and the reasons we got it were that our pit stops rocked and we had a perfect strategy,” Patrick said.

The same could not be said for Helio Castroneves, whose quest for a record-tying fourth victory at Indy all but came to a halt when he stalled his car coming out of the pits on Lap 146.

An uncharacteristic move on a bewildering day for Roger Penske’s three drivers: Will Power had two mishaps in the pits en route to eighth place. Castroneves finished ninth, and Ryan Briscoe crashed into the wall after coming out of the pits on Lap 148.

“Here you have to execute. That’s what we’ve been able to do in the past and where our success comes from,” Penske Performance president Tim Cindric said.

For much of the race, nobody executed better than Tony Kanaan, who nearly became the first driver in 94 Indy 500s to go from worst to first — the back of the 33-car field, where he started, to a victory.

Kanaan was in second place, less than a half second behind Franchitti, with four laps to go. But his fuel management wasn’t as good and he had to stop for a quick splash of gas, which knocked him back and set him up for an 11th-place finish.

“I hope I made it exciting out there,” Kanaan said.

He did, but there was simply no passing Franchitti on this day.

He had the best car — leading for 155 laps — and the best strategy, courtesy of the team run by Ganassi, who earned his own slice of history by winning open-wheel’s biggest race and NASCAR’s biggest race, both in the same year.

“We go racing, and we like to win,” Franchitti said. “To be a part of a team like that just makes your job so easy as a driver.”

Franchitti and Ganassi celebrated their last victory here, in 2007, by planning a move to NASCAR, where they were a complete bust, unable to even make it through a full season in 2008.

So, back to IndyCar they went. Franchitti won the series last year and is looking like the man to beat this year, too.

“Still running,” he informed his crew on the radio after taking the checkered flag.

Running on empty. Straight over to Victory Lane.