pit stop and was restricted to an 19th-place finish. Although he wanted to remain a CART driver because of the series' competition and variety, he moved to the IRL for the 2003 season with the renamed Andretti Green Racing team (AGR; purchased by driver Michael Andretti, Barry Green's brother Kim Green and Kevin Savoree in 2002) following his rejection of an offer to drive for Newman/Haas Racing in place of Christian Fittipaldi. Franchitti changed his driving style to handle the lighter and more responsive normally-aspirated V8 engined car on short oval circuits, and improved his hand-eye-foot coordination. After competing in the season's first two races, finishing seventh in the season-opening round at Homestead, he sustained an anterior stable compression fracture of the lumbar vertebrae in an motorbike accident during a trip to West Lothian that April. Franchitti was replaced variously by Dan Wheldon, Gordon and Bryan Herta in the following three races. He finished a season-best fourth in the Honda Indy 225 at Pikes Peak International Raceway before requiring season-ending keyhole surgery to make his back stronger. Franchitti was replaced by Herta for the rest of the season. He extended his contract to remain at AGR for the 2004 IndyCar Series. After crashing out of the season's opening two races at Homestead and Phoenix International Raceway, Franchitti took his first top ten finish of his campaign at Motegi. He achieved his maiden IndyCar pole position in the Bombardier 500 at the Texas Motor Speedway and finished the race in second place. Four races later, in the Menards A. J. Foyt 225 at the Milwaukee Mile, he led a race-high 111 laps to win his first IndyCar event. Franchitti went on to claim his second series victory in the Honda Indy 225 at Pikes Peak three races after that. The rest of his campaign saw him finish no higher than third at Nazareth Speedway and placed sixth in the championship standings with 409 points. 2005–2008 Franchitti returned to drive for AGR in the 2005 championship after signing a one-year contract extension in January 2005 for a four-car team. A second-place finish at the season's seventh round, held at Richmond Raceway, was his best result over the season's opening nine rounds. Franchitti's first victory of 2005 was the Firestone Indy 200 at Nashville Superspeedway, overtaking Patrick Carpentier with seven laps remaining. The following seven rounds saw him achieve two more podium finishes