Indy 500 champ Franchitti could be RCR option for '08

BROOKLYN, Mich. -- The next prominent open-wheel driver to break into NASCAR could be Indianapolis 500 champion Dario Franchitti.

But don't expect to see Ashley Judd flitting along the frontstretch in sundresses just yet. Franchitti is friends with Nextel Cup team owner Richard Childress, who's had preliminary discussions with the 34-year-old Scotsman about possibly piloting a fourth car for Richard Childress Racing next season.

AP

Ashley Judd and Dario Franchitti

"If you watch him race, he races every lap just as hard as he can," Childress said Friday at Michigan International Speedway. "That's what impresses me about him. A lot of open-wheel guys have come here and tried it. I think if there's a guy who can do it, it's him. He's really level-headed, and he's really a hard racer. Whether he's ready this coming year or whenever he's ready, he'll be able to do it."

Franchitti, who won the rain-shortened Indianapolis 500 in May, lives in Nashville, Tenn., with Judd, his actress wife. Childress said Franchitti, who has 17 career Indy-car wins and is the current points leader in the Indy Racing League, is one of about three drivers he's looking at for next season, and the only one from outside of NASCAR.

"Dario is a friend," Childress said. "We just talk a whole lot. He calls me sometimes after my races, and I call him sometimes after his races. He's thought of this, but right now he's concentrating on the championship and concentrating on what he's doing there. But maybe at the end of the year, we'll sit down and talk."

Franchitti isn't the only open-wheel driver who could wind up in stock cars next year. The owner of the Red Bull energy drink empire has indicated that Scott Speed, recently fired from a Formula One outfit backed by the beverage company, may be bound for NASCAR.

"He would be an asset for us in NASCAR," Red Bull chairman Dietrich Mateschitz recently told a Swiss motorsports magazine. He did not clarify whether the 24-year-old California native would replace one of Red Bull's current Nextel Cup drivers or compete in an additional car.