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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Blue days for Green


Andretti Green team owner Michael Andretti, center, watches Tony Kanaan take teammate Dario Franchitti's photo. 
 (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)
Teresa M. Walker Associated Press

GLADEVILLE, Tenn. – For Andretti Green Racing, the word that best describes 2006 is “slump.”

It’s shocking to use that word about a team that won 21 of 49 races over the three previous seasons, and the last two IndyCar Series season championships. But Andretti Green hasn’t been to Victory Lane once this year.

Sure, it had the top four cars on lap 190 of the Indianapolis 500 in May. Typical of this season, none won.

“I guess you can consider it a slump,” co-owner Michael Andretti said. “We haven’t won a race yet. We’ve won a race every year we’ve been a team, so it’s a little frustrating for us. We’re working hard.”

Andretti Green has been oh, so close.

Dario Franchitti won the pole at St. Petersburg, only to finish 19th. He was third at Richmond. Marco Andretti finished second at Indy, followed by his father, Michael. Tony Kanaan has a pair of thirds and Bryan Herta a fourth-place finish among the team’s 12 top fives.

Michael Andretti and co-owner Kim Green agree part of the problem is that Marlboro Team Penske and Target Chip Ganassi Racing finally caught them in a season in which the entire series switched to Honda engines. Penske has six victories this year, evenly split between Sam Hornish Jr. and Helio Castroneves.

What bothers Andretti and Green most is being passed and struggling to regain their edge.

“The other guys have caught up. Now we have to do the same thing again. It’s a cycle that we’re in. We feel very confident that we’ll figure it out. We have a lot of real smart people on this team,” Andretti said. “Hopefully, we’ll figure it out.”

They are working through a checklist of four or five areas, and Andretti said they are in a bit of a search mode. The biggest problem has been finding more speed on the bigger courses.

They weren’t fastest at Indianapolis, yet still had Michael Andretti in position to finish off his first Indy 500 victory. Unfortunately, a late caution allowed Hornish to run down both Andrettis before passing Marco on the final straightaway to win.

“If Marco Andretti had the chance to do the same two laps or if there were a more experienced driver in the car, I think Marco’s car would’ve been a lot wider,” Green said.

Instead, Marco wound up with a humbling lesson that sums up the problems of this season: a wheel bearing problem at St. Petersburg; fuel pressure and a pair of crashes in the opener at Homestead; and a gearbox problem at Richmond.

Andretti Green thought it had an advantage last weekend at Nashville Superspeedway, where Franchitti won the Firestone Indy 200 last year and Kanaan won the year before.

But Kanaan pitted on lap 45 with an engine problem and finished in the pits and 12th overall. Franchitti finished sixth and complained that Danica Patrick blocked him from working his way past her.

Dan Wheldon was a big part of the team’s success in 2005, winning six races and the season title last year before leaving for Ganassi. Marco Andretti took his spot on the team, but Michael Andretti said everything fell into place for Wheldon last season.

“Our problem this year is definitely not the drivers,” Andretti said. “We all know that, and we as a team have 100 percent faith in what they’ve been doing.”

Franchitti said this has been a tougher season, with everyone working harder this year trying to fix the problems. He thinks the team is missing something on the bigger tracks, while still faring well on the street and smaller courses.

Did Andretti Green set too high a standard?

“That’s the standard we’ve set as a team, a standard I’ve always set no matter what I’ve been driving,” Franchitti said.

Added Kanaan: “It’s just one of those years a couple of people worked really, really hard to beat us, and they succeeded. So now we’re running against time to try to beat them and see if we can do that.”

Time is running out with only five races remaining. The team hopes to find that old groove with consecutive races coming at Milwaukee and Michigan. Team officials are busy trying to finalize sponsorships, and Franchitti is considering switching cars or even retiring.

Patrick, whose contract with Rahal Letterman Racing is up after this season, may be a possibility to slide into any opening.

Andretti and Green aren’t ready to think too far ahead, not with races left to be won. Going an entire season without a victory isn’t something Andretti wants to contemplate just yet.

“It’d be disappointing. I’m not going to lie. We would all be very disappointed,” he said. “It’s getting a little scary because there’s only (five) races to go.”