Mixed News About Franchitti And McRae

Dario Franchitti and Colin McRae are two of Scotland's biggest motor racing stars and two of my favourite racers.

Franchitti won the Indy 500 earlier in the year (I think I wrote about this in May) and clinched the Indycar Series title last Sunday after his title rival who was leading the race at the time, ran out of fuel on the penultimate corner of the last lap. He had let a big championship lead slip after being involved in a number of accidents in the last couple of months including being turned upside down twice in two races. He almost won the CART championship in 1997 (i think) but lost it on number of races won after finishing level with Juan Pablo Montoya so to finally win a championship is very good for the nicest man in motorsport, who, incidentally, is married to actress Ashley Judd. He is now set to join Montoya in NASCAR next season.

Colin McRae was denied a full season drive for next year's World Rally Championship on Friday and announced his retirement from full time rallying. He's not done a full championship since 2003 so it's not a huge surprise. He has been doing the odd rally here and there and also tried his hand at other forms of motorsport such as Le Mans 24 Hour and ASCAR and also has his own computer game francise.

Sadly at 4:10 today he was piloting his helicopter when it crashed, bursting into flames, killing him, his son and two others. RIP Colin McRae.