They came from places called Kilmany, Dumbartonshire, Edinburgh and Dumfries; cities and towns located in a small fog shrouded country bordered by the Atlantic and North Seas. A place famous for its storytelling, its liquor, its golf courses, its tartans and its competitors. Men with names like Clark, Stewart, McNish, Flochart and Franchitti, each in his own way and each in his own time, contributed their individual efforts first to establish and then to maintain the high standards that have run deep in the Scottish racing tradition for so many years. For these men, excellence was and is expected.

Native son, Dario Franchitti, didn’t disappoint his countrymen when he snatched the pole position for the IndyCar Grand Prix of Sonoma with a winning lap time of 1:16.79 and an average speed of 107.95 mph even though he ended up in the dirt of Turn 2 at one point in the final round of Saturday’s qualifying session. Ryan Briscoe, Helio Castroneves, Marco Andretti and Hideki Mutoh rounded out the remainder of the top five and Danica Patrick, the darling of the open wheel set, qualified a distant 11th in a field of 22 on a track that provides little passing opportunity for IRL cars. It was going to be a long race day for DP and everyone else in the field for that matter unless Dario either made a mistake or he decided to throw a scrap to the hounds at his heels on Sunday.

Earlier in the day, Turn 3A was the sight of a serious accident involving Nelson Philippe and Will Power, who both suffered concussions as well as broken bones when they crashed during practice. The injuries they sustained required an overnight stay at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital where they remained for more in depth evaluations to determine the full extent of their injuries.

On Sunday, Franchitti was able to stay clear of the eight car pileup on the first lap of the race at Turn 1, a place on the track that can be best described as stenotic. Imagine looking in your rear view mirror and wondering how twenty-one eager 650 hp/1600 pound cars behind you were going to fit into a space big enough for one, all at the same time and you’ll come away appreciating the level of skill it takes to avoid similar mishaps each and every time the cars passed through that same gauntlet for the next 74 laps of the race.

Early on, it became very clear that Franchitti, barring any pit stop calamity or mileage miscalculations stood a good chance of leading from start to finish and for 75 laps he did just that. Ryan Briscoe, the second place finisher, remained a respectable two car lengths behind the leader during much of the race waiting for a mistake that would never come. Dario was not about to be denied.

Black tires, red tires, pit stop strategies and “Push-to-Pass” Buttons aside, the only thing that mattered in the end was Franchitti’s ability to shut the door on the rest of the field, which he seemed to do quite handily for one hour and forty-nine minutes, an unusual feat in today’s world of open-wheel racing. The fact that Franchitti won didn’t come as a surprise to the folks in Edinburgh because after all, it was expected.