Franchitti bouyed by veteran -- and close -- staff
Dario Franchitti is enjoying a resurgent season and the IndyCar Series points lead. He's being helped by two veteran technicians who also happen to be his friends, writes John Oreovicz.
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INDIANAPOLIS -- Bruce McCaw doesn't follow American open-wheel racing as closely as he used to. But he surely must have liked what he saw recently in the 91st running of the Indianapolis 500.
That's because the front of the field at Indy resembled a reunion for PacWest Racing, the CART Champ Car team McCaw owned from 1993-2001. PacWest alumni John Anderson and Allen McDonald played key roles in Dario Franchitti's Indy victory, and second-place finisher Scott Dixon scored the last of PacWest's five Champ Car wins in 2001.
Anderson, a 61-year old Australian, ran PacWest's racing operations from 1994-2000 before managing Paul Tracy's car at Team Green in 2001-02. Wanting to remain loyal to Champ Car, he took a job running CART's technical operations for two years before returning to what had become Andretti Green Racing. "Ando" was team manager for Dan Wheldon's dominant run to the 2005 IndyCar Series title, including victory in the Indianapolis 500, and he's called the shots for Dario Franchitti's No. 27 team since the start of 2006.
McDonald, known affectionately in the paddock as 'Squirrel,' worked in Formula 1 until he was recruited (by Anderson) as PacWest's technical director in 1997. He engineered Mark Blundell to three race wins and remained with the team until the end of 2001 before following Anderson to Team Green. Since the start of 2002 for the team's final season in Champ Car, McDonald has been fellow Scotsman Franchitti's race engineer.
The fact that Anderson and McDonald have worked together for a decade certainly made their transition into the Indy Racing League a lot easier. It's also added an element of calmness and stability to the No. 27 portion of AGR's four-car (and sometimes five) juggernaut.
After a subpar 2006 season during which he considered retiring, Franchitti returned energized this year and more than a third of the way into the season, he leads the IndyCar Series championship standings. In addition to his win at Indianapolis, Dario has finished in the top five in five consecutive races, including three podiums.
"We talked before the season started about the championship," Anderson said. "Last year we had a very slow start in the points race because we had some dramas early and it seemed to take the wind out of [Franchitti's] sails. So we tried to concentrate on getting those early points. You can never make them up, so what we can get early is going to stand us in good stead -- especially in his head.
"We didn't do as well as we wanted to in Homestead and we still have unfinished business in St. Pete. But he fought back from a lap down and it was a good race for us to build our confidence, especially for him. And we went on from there -- 7-5-3-2-1. We joked about the old '3-2, what's the next one going to be?' And there it was."
With his distinctive accent peppered with Australian colloquialisms, Ando is as entertaining to listen to on the track as off, as anyone who has heard his radio exchanges with Mark Blundell, Wheldon or Franchitti will attest. PacWest once published a glossary of "Ando-speak" terminology and he is equally beloved at AGR.
"Ando is really smart, first of all," Franchitti said. "He knows everything about racing. It's easy to get confused with his easy-going manner, but he's a determined guy. He never seems to have a bad day and he just picks you up.
"You know he's pretty special when two other drivers [John Andretti and Anthony Foyt] mentioned him in their speeches after the 500."
While Anderson calls the strategy for Franchitti and his Canadian Club car, McDonald is the man responsible for setting the car up. He and Dario have known each other for almost 15 years.
"I tried to get together with him before we started working together at Green's but he didn't want to leave PacWest," Franchitti said. "We worked together at Paul Stewart Racing, when he was in the Formula 3000 team and I was in the F3 team. The way he sets things out helps the whole team and I love working with the guy.
None of us are getting any younger, and if he can do it this year, it would be a great top-off to his career.
John Anderson
"We have similar tastes for how we like to set up a car, but sometimes since we've been in the IRL we've had to sort of push ourselves to go away from our comfort zone," Dario added. "Along with [crew chief] Dave Seiffert and Ando, I've got a really great bunch of people."
Said McDonald: "I think what we have here at AGR is very special and I've never seen anything like it anywhere else. I don't know that it's just the drivers; I think it's the way it has been put together. There's a management style here that says it's expected of us to get along. We're all supposed to pull in the same directions and I don't know if I've been in another race team where it has been so nicely set up."
Franchitti's best and most consistent IndyCar season to date continued with a second-place finish at the Milwaukee Mile, elevating him into the series points lead. The Scotsman really only contended for a title once in his career, when he and Juan Pablo Montoya ended the 1999 CART Champ Car season tied on points but Montoya was declared the champion by having more race wins.
"Unfortunately there has always been an acceptance from Dario of 'the old Franchitti luck' when things turn to junk," Anderson said. "But I think he's going to get them by the bootstraps this year and who knows how many more he's got? He's still a bloody good racer.
"None of us are getting any younger, and if he can do it this year, it would be a great top-off to his career."
Anderson is also proud of the way Dixon has matured into an outstanding racer. Ando maintains a vigilant eye on the Australian and New Zealand racing scene, and he is generally credited for giving New Zealander Dixon his big break in America. He won the 2000 Indy Lights series championship for PacWest before graduating to the Champ Car team. As a true Champ Car rookie, he won at Nazareth and gave the superior Penske Reynards all they could handle at tracks like Road America and Laguna Seca.
"There were a couple of guys my friend Kenny Smith kept an eye on but Dixon was the first one he tried to get a drive for," Anderson said. "I'm glad that Bruce [McCaw] took a punt on him. Any time with a young driver, particular one you don't see that much, it's a gamble, so I'm happy to see him doing so well."
Dixon's season of Champ Cars with PacWest coincided with Anderson's departure from the team, but he is still grateful to a man he considers a mentor.
"Ando was a huge influence on me," Dixon noted. "He was one of the great people at PacWest because he was such a straight shooter and he didn't beat around the bush. You knew how it was and he's still the same guy today."
John Oreovicz covers open-wheel racing for National Speed Sport News and ESPN.com.
