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Sebring is not the most attractive of motorsport venues. Set on the edge of humid, snake-infested Florida swamp land, the flat, featureless track runs round the bumpy concrete perimeter roads of a disused US Airforce base.
This week it has been the less than glamorous workplace for Dario Franchitti as he shakes down a lurid green and white 900-horsepower Reynard-Honda carrying the mockingly inappropriate Team Kool sponsors names on its nose spoilers and flanks.
The British-built, Japanese-powered projectile has been assembled from a kit of parts air-freighted across the Atlantic from Reynard's Northamptonshire factory.
Supervising the familiarisation process between 27-year-old Champ Car veteran Franchitti and the methanol powered machine is Ian Watt, from Inverness.
Watt, recruited from the rival Pioneer team, is Franchitti's race engineer. He is entrusted not just with fettling the car, but also establishing a rapport with his fellow Scot, who will drive at speeds of up to 240mph next season.
It is the kind of intuitive understanding which Franchitti craved in the recently ended 20-race season, which stuttered to halt in California with a broken engine.
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