Dario Franchitti who is making the transition from Indy cars to the Nascar stock car racing circuit will make his Nascar debut at Martinsville in a Craftsman Truck Series race.  He will try and qualify the No. 41 Target Dodge Ram which is owned by Cunningham Motorsports.

Franchitti will find Martinsville a whole kind of different animal as he will see things their that he never could imagine. Getting bump all the time and no give or take for drivers on this very small track. Of course Franchitti isn’t one to back away from contact so it will be interesting to see how he handles it.

Dario Franchitti will make his long awaited stock car debut in an ARCA race for Chip Gannassi. Franchitti was let out of his IRL contract and has signed a multi-year deal with Chip Gannassi racing to drive the No. 40 Dodge which was driven by David Stremme this year. Stremme won’t be returning.

This is just another example of how open wheel racing is dying as their stars are jumping to Nascar. I look for this to continue as things get worse for open wheel racing. It’s slowly dying which is sad but a fact of life. In foreign countries open wheel racing is big just not here in the United States.