Franchitti column

Portland was another frustrating race, for a number of reasons. Qualifying was OK, we got fourth, and in reality I think that was the maximum we could have got from that car. I have to say that Penske have really got their cars sorted at the moment, and they are certainly the ones to beat.

Then we had the race... Hmmm. It's a long drag from the rolling start to the first corner at Portland. The Festival Curves are a right-left-right chicane, and the first corner is pretty tight. So we got the green flag, and the two Penske cars are holding station side-by-side, and Roberto (Moreno) and I are doing the same on the second row.

As we get to the first corner, I'm on the outside, tucked in behind Gil (de Ferran) and in front is Helio (Castroneves) with me and Roberto still holding formation. I'm well into the corner and I get this almighty thump up the back. I thought: 'what the hell... where did that come from?' I didn't know what was going on. I had got round side by side with Moreno, and Kenny Brack wasn't even entering the equation. If I hadn't been where I was, Brack would have gone straight off the track. The guy is unbelievable. I was spun around, but the track was blocked, so I had to wait for the whole field to go past.

I did a 180degree spin into the escape road, but I knew that going through that would earn a penalty. So I went to spin the thing around again and drive back onto the track, but I stalled it. The Safety Crew pushed me through the short cut, and they're saying, 'go on, go on through the short-cut.'

When you go through the short cut there's a line at which you're supposed to stop at for 10 secs, so you don't gain any advantage. There's supposed to be somebody there to stop you. But I've got the Safety Crew there waving me on. These guys are there at every race, every week, they're the business, they're excellent at their jobs, they know what they're doing and they're waving me through. Eventually the engine re-fires about 10 yards short of the line, and the course marshal on the line waves me through.

We decided to come in for a tactical top up of fuel because we were running last anyway, and that would give us an extra three laps in the pit window. As we were about to get the green they tell me on the radio that I've got a drive through penalty for going through the short cut and not stopping...

I wasn't best pleased, I can tell you... I mean, this guy punts me out of the race with what is essentially dangerous driving, and he gets no penalty. I'm the innocent party, I'm told to do something by the officials, I do it, and I get a bloody drive through penalty. And to make it worse the CART officials came up afterwards and said: "Sorry, we made a mistake with the penalty." So I'm like 'What are you doing to do about it?', and they said there's nothing they can do.

This isn't a game you know. Kool are investing tens of millions of dollars in this thing. The whole team are busting their balls to win a championship - we're not playing at this. We lost the championship by just one point last year - one more point and we'd have won. And then we get a mistaken penalty just like that. You know that's one of the problems with CART. There's a few people, like the Safety Crew, who are professionals and know what they are doing, and the rest of them are volunteers who are there just for the weekend.

From last we had nothing to lose. We had a go and we ended up ninth, and with the fuel strategy we were on we were running the same pace as the leaders. It's so close just now that everybody's running within a couple of tenths of each other, so to make up any kind of ground is pretty difficult. If you take away the 35 seconds that the drive through cost us, we'd still probably have finished fourth. And that's including the spin at the first corner and dropping to last. We've been pretty strong this season, and the luck... Well it's not even luck, it's just people making bad decisions. It's hard enough to win a championship, without that going on. I guess you can tell I'm rather disillusioned at the moment.

I guess it helps a bit that everybody else isn't scoring maximum points - Gil is the first repeat winner in eight races. You can tell that everyone else has had a tough time, the maximum points score so far would be 176, yet Moreno is leading with just 68! One race could make all the difference. Let's hope for me it wasn't Portland...

Anyway, we go to Cleveland this weekend - the third race in three weekends, and ample opportunity for another first corner accident! Hopefully everybody will behave themselves this time. The track's OK. It's bumpy like you wouldn't believe. It's an airport most of the time. We actually land there before they close it for the race! It's great, you fly in, park the plane, then go racing next morning.

I had a bad race there last year, but the year before I was on the podium. Last year we just struggled to get the car right all weekend over the bumps, we've got some ideas to make it work. They say it's an easy track to pass, but it's not really. It's nice and wide, and the first turn's a bit exciting, but after that it's bloody difficult to pass anybody. Once you get in to the track, there is pretty much only one line that is the fast way round. You can deviate slightly in the race, but it's difficult to do that because you start getting all the rubber that's off-line. And that's pretty critical.

What else? Between Detroit and Portland I had the chance to fly an airbus A300 simulator at the FedEx headquarters in Memphis. It was brilliant, just awesome. The guy just sat me down and said "push this, pull that and use the pedals to keep it straight and pull back on the stick when I tell you!" So I did my first take off! Then I did my first landing on my own - I managed to land the thing. On the runway... In the middle, which I was pretty happy about. The sensations are incredible. It's too realistic. I was like: "How much is one of these things?" The guy looked over and said: "Up to $20m depending on how much kit you put in it." So I won't be getting one of those for Christmas. It's like the ultimate Playstation! At least I fared better than my remote control plane I built earlier this year. I crashed that the first time I took off! Wrecked it...

I'm sure you've been reading the rumours in the news about me and what I may, or may not, be doing for next year. Obviously at the moment I'm not saying anything. What I will say is that we're talking to quite a few people, and there are some interesting offers, but nothing is finalised. But the teams seem enthusiastic, and that of course includes Barry Green. I have a great relationship with Team Kool Green, and that, at the moment is what I'm focusing on - after all, we seem to have a race almost every weekend at the moment.

Hopefully Cleveland this weekend will be a more straightforward weekend. I can't wait to have a good result to write about. It's incredible when you think of the races we've had at Team Kool Green this year that I'm still only 24 points behind Roberto in the championship.