LOUDON, N.H. – Dario Franchitti had a 2007 season that Indy Car drivers dream about.

Not only did he win the grandadddy of all races, the Indianapolis 500, the Scot also won the IRL points championship.

He decided to accept a new challenge this year by joining Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates and driving in both the Sprint Cup and Nationwide series.

It has been a trying year for Franchitti, including suffering a broken ankle in the Nationwide race at Talladega Superspeedway on April 26 that sidelined him for several races.

He is 42nd in points in the Sprint Cup series while running in nine of 16 races and 30th in the Nationwide Series, taking the green flag for nine of the 17 races.

“It has been a little more difficult than I expected. We’ve been inconsistent. If you show up with a good car, you’re in good shape. But some days, you aren’t where you need to be when you show up. And you struggle to get where you need to be. But that is improving.”

Franchitti, whose 18 victories make him the winningest driver in U.S. open-wheel history, said the roller-coaster season has been tough.

“One week, we feel like we’re getting it. And the next week we’ll struggle. Last week at Sonoma (Calif.), we struggled. When we went to Michigan, we expected to struggle but we ran very well,” said Franchitti, who qualified seventh for Sunday’s Sprint Cup race.

He said failing to qualify at Sonoma was difficult to accept.

“I went from qualifying on the pole [at Sonoma] in an Indy Car [last year] to not making the race this year. I’ve had a few low points in my career and that was one of them. That was tough. After having a very good test, we showed up with a different car at Sonoma and we couldn’t get it to work,” said Franchitti, who is a licensed helicopter pilot. “But we went testing in Milwaukee this week and came to Loudon with a really good car. The guys are busy. They’ve been working real hard on the car and that really means a lot.

“This is a new track and a new day. We’ve got to get on with it,” said Franchitti, who is married to actress Ashley Judd.

The 35-year-old Franchitti knew there would be a learning curve and has a positive attitude about the future.

“I take pleasure from small victories and try to improve every week. Both the team as a whole, including all three cars, and myself,” said Franchitti, who is teammates with former open-wheel star Juan Pablo Montoya, in his second year in the Sprint Cup series, and Reed Sorenson.

He said he was enjoying the Sprint Cup series until last week’s disappointment at Sonoma.

“I had a great time at Michigan and Pocono,” said Franchitti.

The Ganassi race team has partnered up with videogame-maker Activision and long-time sponsor Target to have Guitar Hero: Aerosmith be the primary sponsor for Franchitti’s No. 40 Dodge this weekend in the Cup race.

“It’s pretty cool. Everybody loves the game,” said Franchitti. “I haven’t played it for a while but I’ll be playing it [Friday night]. It could get interesting. When you play it, you feel like you can play the guitar. But when you play Tiger Woods Golf, you feel like you can drive the ball 325 yards. But when you go out on the golf course, reality hits. I’m not the most musical guy.”

Roush Fenway producing

Jack Roush Racing and the Fenway Sports Group, led by Boston Red Sox principal owner John Henry, joined forces last season and it has certainly been a productive relationship.

Roush Fenway’s five-driver team produced seven victories last year and, this season, all five drivers are in the top 20 in points entering the Lenox Industrial Tools 301 Sunday.

Carl Edwards, who is fourth in points, has all three Roush Racing wins. Greg Biffle is seventh in points, Matt Kenseth is 12th, David Ragan is 14th and Jamie McMurray is 20th.

Ragan will drive the car with the Boston Red Sox logo on Sunday.

Roush said the partnership has been “working out great. It has been going very well.

“Things are going as well as I had hoped. We certainly got introduced to some interesting people with CitiFinancial and I don’t know if we would have met those people with the Fenway connection,” said Roush.

CititFinancial is the primary sponsor on Greg Biffle’s Ford this weekend.

Roush said the Roush-Fenway partnership was in the works for “a couple of years” before it became a reality last season.

“The match between the personalities is really important. John Henry is just a really super guy. He has a great organization,” said Roush.

Roush and his drivers were among Roush Fenway personnel who drove a couple of Ford-150 trucks at Fenway Park on Wednesday before the Red Sox’s 5-0 win over Arizona. They also showed off Ragan’s No. 6 Discount Tire Ford with the Red Sox logo.

“We did a lot of interviews. It was interesting. Everybody had a good time,” said Roush, who called going to Fenway Park “a religious experience.”

Ragan is piloting the No. 6 AAA/Boston Red Sox Ford Fusion for Sunday’s race.

“I was a baseball fan growing up,” said Ragan. “I was always an Atlanta Braves fan and I always hated the Yankees, so that kind of made me an automatic Boston fan.”

Ragan’s car looks like a baseball with red baseball stitches and carries the No. 6 which is stylized like the jersey numbers on the Red Sox uniforms.

Last year, teammate Carl Edwards drove a similar car sponsored by Lumber Liquidators.

Harvick to race at Oxford

Sprint Cup driver Kevin Harvick will make his debut in the TD Banknorth Oxford 250 on July 20 and he’s looking forward to it. He joins several Cup drivers who have run the 250 in recent years like Kyle and Kurt Busch, Denny Hamlin, J.J. Yeley, Matt Kenseth and Terry Labonte.

“I just like going to different parts of the country and racing different racetracks. Last week we got to go to Bakersfield (Calif.) and race on a dirt track there. I’ve heard a lot about the Oxford 250 for several years. It’s a unique race and something a lot of guys who have been in the sport for a long time have gotten to do. I just wanted to experience it once.”

lmahoney@bangordailynews.net

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