Franchitti comes into his own at rain-filled Indy

	Dario Franchitti's charmed life got even better on Sunday when he won the Indianapolis 500. AP
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The 91st running was headed for one of its most dramatic conclusions, a four- or five-car joust in the final 20 laps. How do we know this? There were 23 lead changes among nine drivers through 155 laps and every driver that can run at the front can turn it up another notch when Indianapolis is the prize.

We never got there. Rain intervened and stopped the race after 166 laps, 415 miles. It took Dario Franchitti from contender to Victory Lane.

Franchitti had taken the lead through a fortuitous circumstance. He'd been forced to pit for a cut tire when the race resumed following a three-hour rain delay. To warm the cars up, two laps were run under caution. Franchitti dropped from fifth to 14th, but it also put the Scotsman on a different pit sequence. He had an advantage gap of six laps in fuel range over leaders Tony Kanaan and Danica Patrick.

The race went green and stayed green long enough to cycle through pit stops. Franchitti's Dallara-Honda was fast and he was up to fifth when they began. He went into the lead for seven laps, pitted, and came out fifth. Within two laps, he was in third, behind Kanaan and Patrick.

Caution. Thinking the race would go the distance, Kanaan and Patrick pitted on lap 155. Franchitti went into the lead. Cars behind Franchitti came in too, and Scott Dixon, on the same pit sequence as Franchitti, vaulted from ninth to second.

Franchitti easily survived two restarts, but there were crashes following both and only one complete green-flag lap in the last 12.

He was in the lead, late in the day with impending darkness. One more little shower would end the race. Franchitti wondered how far away it was.

"The one comment that sticks in my mind was (race strategist) John Anderson saying on the radio, 'The rain's eight blocks away.' I'm like, 'C'mon.' " Franchitti said. "When you get in that position, we knew we had to pit one more time, we pretty much were sure everybody else had to pit one more time, too. It was going to come down to a dogfight. There's a lot of strong cars, especially my teammates, the Ganassi guys, the Penske guys. So whatever happened, it came down to that dogfight. It was going to be hard, so I was hoping for the rain."

Franchitti and Anderson had bet upon the rain arriving before they had to pit again on lap 172. Their other option would have been to pit with Kanaan and Patrick and trying to race into the front before the rain hit.

Franchitti had options because of that cut tire.

"I guess we ran over some carbon (fiber) from the last accident," Franchitti explained. "We had to pit. That wasn't our intention, but we had to do it for safety. That put us on the strategy that won us the race. Pretty happy about that.

"I had to fight my way back through the pack. That was exciting. Ended up not only behind the guys on the lead lap, but behind the lapped cars, too. Managed to get through the traffic pretty quickly, back into contention. Then, the strategy, the roll of the dice proved to be the lucky one."