Dario Franchitti

Dario Franchitti Fun Facts

3-time Indianapolis 500 winner 

 4-time Izod Indycar Series champion.

...and he still made time to answer some questions we emailed to him!  Thank you, Dario.

Mark Donahue the 1971 Pocono Winner

 

Mark Donahue won the Inaugural Schaefer 500 in 1971. 

It was Donahue's first Indycar win and gave Roger Penske (gee, that name sounds familiar) his first Indycar win as an owner.

The rest of the Top 5 from the 1971 Schaefer 500.

 

2nd Joe Leonard

3rd AJ Foyt

4th Mario Andretti

5th Bill Vukovich

More Pocono Schaefer 500 Programs

 

 

 

We really liked this photo. 

The cars were so cool.  Just a wedge shape.

 

 

A.J. Foyt The 1975 Pocono winner.

He also won in '73, '79 and '81.

 

1963 Indianapolis Yearbook

We're a little late with this since the 50th anniversary of Parnelli Jones' win at Indy was a few weeks ago, however we just stumbled upon this book in Pappy's stuff today and couldn't pass up sharing the photos from the front and back cover.

Scott Dixon fun facts

   Scott Dixon fun facts

* Has a total of 28 race wins and 20 poles in Indycar.

* Is the son of two dirt track racers.


* Wanted to be a race car driver since he was 5 but first climbed inside a car when he was 13.                                             

* His "secret obsession" is chocolate.

* He can't stand airport security lines, or slow people in fast lanes.

* His pets are two Maltese dogs, George and Arthur, named after two kings.

* His nicknames are "Iceman" and  "Dixie".

                                   

 

 

Here's the 2009 ticket showing Scott Dixons 2008 Indy 500 win

                                                             

Race Car Decanters

 

 Pappy always had old Indycars on a shelf in the living room.

Turns out they were liquor decanters.

 

 

 

  

Our mom said that every year when she and mammy and pappy went to Indy they stopped at practically every liquor store in the area so pappy could run in the stores and find race car decanters. 



Bobby Unser

Mom put these two together and asked what year finish it was, and who were the drivers.
I got pretty close to getting the drivers right.
( hint: The 40 car was a somewhat different color scheme that year)
 

 

Mom's Thoughts

Keeping up with the action at the track in the 21st century. 

 

 How cool is technology that you can just turn on your computer wherever you are and watch live practice at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway?

 I will admit, we keep the live feed from the speedway on in the background as the kids are doing schoolwork and stuff (one of the benefits of homeschooling) because I just love the sounds of the cars on the track and hearing the announcers.

Of course my kids think nothing of it, it's all they know. 

So to help them appreciate the how lucky they are, I've told them about the 'old days'.

To keep up with what was happening at the track in the 70's and 80's my dad got a May monthly subscription to the Indianapolis Star newspaper.   Problem with that was that till the mail delivered them here to Eastern Pennsylvania it was three or four days old.  
I'm not complaining though, it was still great and I read the all the Indy news as soon as I got home from school each day.  My favorite columnist was Robin Miller because he knew lots of drivers and had the inside scoop of what was going on behind the scenes.
Now the inside scoop comes from drivers themselves from facebook, twitter or videos, which is fine with us, since we can never get enough of Indy.

The Greatest Spectacle in Racing

 

It doesn't matter who is in charge, it's still the Indianapolis 500!

1957 Indianapolis 500 Program

 

Our mammy and pappy went to the Indy 500 almost every year after they got married in 1954.

 

Pappy told us how they used to leave the night before the race and drive 14 hours and get there and watch the race then sleep a little in the car and drive back, because they couldn't afford to stay in a hotel.

 

Pappy kept all his old Indy stuff and we just found a big box of neat things,

like this program from the 1957 Indy 500.

 

 

Indy 500 Patches

What do these three patches have in common?

 

Answer:

 

They are from the years when a driver won Indy for a fourth time.

 

AJ Foyt in 1977

 

Al Unser Sr. in 1987

 

Rick Mears in 1991

 

Four weeks to the Indy 500!

Can Dario Franchitti join

A.J. Foyt, Al Unser Sr. and Rick Mears

as a four-time Indy 500 winner?

Car and drivers photos from 1969 and 1970

Our pappy was really into open wheel racing and he and mammy used to go to lots of tracks around where we live like Pocono, Langhorne, Trenton and Nazareth, so he especially liked the 'local' drivers who lived nearby. 

His all time favorite was Mario Andretti. 

 

We found these old pictures in a file of our pappy's and thought they were pretty cool.

 



Mario Andretti (Indy 500 Winner 1969)
 



Al Unser Sr. (Indy 500 winner 1970,71,78)



Dan Gurney

Mark Donohue (Indy 500 winner 1972)



Bobby Unser (Indy 500 Winner 1968, 75, 81)