Dario Dominates At Long Beach

After struggling through a disapointing foray into the world of NASCAR last year, it only took two races for 2007 IndyCar Series champion Dario Franchitti to find his way back into victory lane. The win, which the Scot called a birthday gift to his wife, actress Ashley Judd, was his ninth in the series & his first on a road/street course.

"After everything we went through last year (in NASCAR) and then Chip (Ganassi) coming up and saying, 'Hey, do you want to drive my Indy car?' And now we're back here winning together. Having finished second to his cars here twice I said to him last night, 'If you can't beat 'em, join 'em' and here we are. Thanks to my crew and the whole Target team."

While polesitter Will Power would take the early race lead, troubles with his radio link to the pit wall would hamper his efforts: Power would soldier on to finish in second place. AGR drivers Tony Kanaan and Danica Patrick would take advantage of pit strategies that were altered on the fly as on-track incidents occured to erase their poor starting positions and finish in third and fourth, respectively.

Here are the complete race results:http://www.indycar.com/stats/boxscores/2009/longbeach_04192009.pdf

Next up for the IndyCar Series is the first oval race of '09, on Sunday at Kansas Speedway: Race time will be 4pm ET/8pm GMT.

Earlier in the day, J.R. Hildebrand went flag-to-flar to win the Firestone Indy Lights race. Unfortunately, St. Petersburg winner Junior Strous retired early in the event with an engine fire. 

After the season opener at St. Pete I had mentioned (in a thread on the forum board page) how poorly the IndyCar website's "Race Control" video streaming program had functioned. I am happy to be able to report that their coverage of Long Beach was MUCH improved, & I can now whole-heartedly recomend it's use to anyone who has no access to television coverage of the IndyCar Series.