Top 35 Dario Franchitti Quotes

Always played all of the race games on everything from the PlayStation to the Xbox and PS2, and as advanced as PCs are now, it’s amazing how realistic they can make the experience.

Cart is not as sanitised as formula one. You just get in the car and get on with it. And it is more fun.

When I moved over to the States full time it was a culture shock. I had a great life over there, I really did, but I was always homesick. I always wanted to get home whenever I could.

I put myself under a lot of pressure when I was racing, all the time.

I always bump into people that Ive met. Not great friends, but if I bump into somebody Ive known and I wont recognise them. It can be embarrassing at times.

I hope I can help the team improve their performance, and what that would look like, I guess, is one of the guys winning the 500 or the championship. If that happened, I would be a tiny part.

I think my love of cars came from my dad, when I was much younger. Before my dad spent all his money on my racing, he had some nice cars. And my grandfathers had nice cars.

I am proud of what I was able to do, the races I was able to win and the championships, but that had as much to do with the teams and the people I worked with as well. Its not something you just do on your own; it’s a whole army.

Cars are my weakness, what can I tell ya? I like to buy cars.

Then realising and being told that I wasn’t going to be able to race anymore, that was a whole different stage. It’s that old thing of you don’t know what you’ve got, right? Pretty quickly I realised how much I was going to miss doing what I do.

When I was a kid I was only interested in going fast and I still love that feeling of speed. But when you start to go racing, it’s winning that’s important.

Losing friends, it’s the hardest thing that has ever happened to me and I still got back in the car after crashes. I’d get back in with broken bones and it just seemed easy, there was the drive to do it.

Mission Ignition’ was really brilliant. Each show was made in a day. It wasnt staged, we made each show in a day, and it was fairly intense.

I didn’t realise how tightly wound I was until I retired because I would think about racing pretty close to 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I really focused.

I absolutely don’t regret going to Nascar and I’m not finished with it. I intend to be back one day.

It’s a pretty stark choice: you either deal with the dangers of the sport or you get out of the car.

Dad re-mortgaged the house and family and friends pitched in to help me get through that first year and after that, that was it. I won my first championship in cars that year – 1991.

For IndyCar racing, we really need to get it out to a wider audience so people can see just how exciting it all is. Once you’ve seen it and realize what it’s all about, then it can be quite addicting.

In Nascar, I was in a situation where I was out of my comfort zone.

It’s a big misconception that racing drivers aren’t fit. My trainer, who used to be a professional triathlete, equates the fitness level of the drivers to triathletes.

I’ve driven with a few broken body parts over the years.

Some days I end up thinking I really wish I was in the car – ike the Sonoma test, the boys tested it and I really missed driving the car there. But there are other days that I dont miss it.

Anybody that knows me knows that my job was making cars go fast, and mostly breaking them as opposed to fixing them, so it was good fun to get involved and to help the teams.

If I get tired, my concentration goes away. My decision-making isnt as razor sharp as it was. I will repeat myself; my memorys not great, I forget words.

I really thought my racing days were behind me but it is tough to give up something that has been a part of my life for so long and that I love so much.

I like relaxing, water-skiing on a loch, or playing with toys like bikes and helicopters.

Id love to work with the team in IndyCar; I just wont be behind the wheel anymore.

You go from a touring car to an IndyCar, which isn’t a great jump, and then you go to this big old heavy stock car which doesn’t feel like anything you’ve ever driven before. All of a sudden none of the stuff you’ve learned in your career – like setting up the car or what the mechanics need to know – works any more.

I think the hardest thing to reproduce, though, is the g-forces. When you turn a corner and all of a sudden you have three, four, maybe even five times the force of gravity pushing against your body, it’s literally trying to push you through the side of your car. There’s no way to duplicate that feeling.

Racing is a dangerous sport, but weve worked very hard to make it safer. We always have, the drivers, the teams, the governing bodies, the tracks.

I have my three pace cars, I have two Corvettes and a Camaro from three years, I have one 65 Sport Fury pace car from the year that Jimmy Clark won. But Porsches and Ferraris are the main thing.

I was a big ‘Pole Position’ fan. I’ve been playing games for a long time.

I’m Scottish. Both my parents were born there, but I’m very proud of my Italian heritage as well.

Formula One is what I want to do. But I will go there only if I do a good enough job to attract an offer from a good, competitive, team.

Im absolutely a car collector. Im a car fanatic.