{"id":142177,"date":"2026-02-03T17:38:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T17:38:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/142177\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T17:38:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T17:38:15","slug":"dario-franchitti-to-race-for-tricon-garage-at-st-petersburg-truck-series-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/142177\/","title":{"rendered":"Dario Franchitti to race for Tricon Garage at St. Petersburg Truck Series race"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tricon Garage announced Tuesday that four-time NTT IndyCar Series champion Dario Franchitti will compete for the organization when the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series debuts in St. Petersburg, Florida, on Saturday, Feb. 28 (Noon ET, FOX, NASCAR Racing Network Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).<\/p>\n

Franchitti will pilot the No. 1 Toyota for Tricon in partnership between the team, Jimmie Johnson and Legacy Motor Club. Dollar Tree will serve as primary sponsor for the No. 1 truck.<\/p>\n

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RELATED: 2026 Truck Series schedule<\/a> | St. Pete joins Truck schedule<\/a><\/p>\n

The 52-year-old Scot has a decorated racing resume, with three wins in the Indianapolis 500 and a victory in the 2008 Rolex 24 at Daytona alongside Juan Pablo Montoya, Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thought of racing a NASCAR truck on a street circuit is really intriguing to me,\u201d Franchitti said in a press release. \u201cThe different surfaces, the fact that part of it is on an airport, then you go into the streets, the different bumps, all those things you got to try and master. This was just the chance to race on a circuit that I love, and a chance to do something fun. This all stemmed from a conversation with Jimmie Johnson. For me, with the opportunity to race the truck, it was really him, it was the whole team that he has there [at LMC] that made it all happen. His relationship with Toyota, Dollar Tree coming on a sponsor \u2014 it\u2019s all been through Jimmie and the team at Legacy MC. If it goes well, great. If it doesn\u2019t go well, I am going to be blaming Jimmie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Franchitti competed in select events across the NASCAR Cup Series and NASCAR O\u2019Reilly Auto Parts Series in 2007 and 2008 with Chip Ganassi Racing. He made 10 Cup starts and 18 O\u2019Reilly starts with a top-five finish coming in the latter series at Watkins Glen International.<\/p>\n

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In his 2011 championship season in IndyCar, Franchitti won the first race of the year at St. Pete.<\/p>\n

Since retiring from full-time action in 2013, Franchitti has remained active in racing as a broadcast analyst and adviser\/driver coach at Chip Ganassi Racing.<\/p>\n

MORE: Buy 2026 Truck Series tickets now!<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cDario and I had been talking for a long time about the chance to race together, so when he approached me about St. Petersburg, I knew I had to get to work,\u201d Johnson said in a team press release. \u201cI called him back a day later with an incredible opportunity to join a championship-winning team with Toyota and the great people at Tricon. \u201cIt\u2019s been a lot of fun getting him integrated into the team and spending more time together, going through the process of getting him back to racing. I\u2019m so excited it all came together and thankful that Dollar Tree is going to support. I am looking forward to sitting on the pit box alongside the team and sharing this experience with Dario.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tricon Garage announced Tuesday that four-time NTT IndyCar Series champion Dario Franchitti will compete for the organization when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":142178,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[68942,68940,46019,28,16091,68941,68945,16092,68944,68943,202,204,203,199,201,200,21279,68946],"class_list":{"0":"post-142177","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-chip-ganassi-racing","9":"tag-dario-franchitti","10":"tag-dollar-tree","11":"tag-florida","12":"tag-indycar-series","13":"tag-jimmie-johnson","14":"tag-legacy-motor-club","15":"tag-nascar","16":"tag-nascar-cup-series","17":"tag-nascar-racing","18":"tag-st-pete","19":"tag-st-pete-headlines","20":"tag-st-pete-news","21":"tag-st-petersburg","22":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","23":"tag-st-petersburg-news","24":"tag-toyota","25":"tag-tricon-garage"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142177\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}