By Andrew Cutler
March 11 2010
As the 2010 IndyCar Season looms just ahead (it starts this weekend on the streets of Sao Paulo, Brazil), these is some last-minute scrambling to fill a few vacant seats - and to keep one young up-and-comming star from sitting on the sidelines alltogeather.
As of this time last week, Dale Coyne Racing was one of two squads who had yet to announce any drivers: Team 3G is the other, but they will be skipping the Sao Paulo event & joining the campaign in St. Petersburg. Now DCR has both cars filled - at least for now. After three years of running partial schedules, Milka Duno will run the full season in the #18 car, most likely with CITGO sponsorship. DCR's #19 car will be driven in Brazil by Englishman Alex Lloyd, who's attempt to land in a car at Newman-Haas-Lanigan seems to have come up short. As of right now, DCR will only say that they will have a 'formal announcement' about who will drive the #19 for the rest of the year at some point before the St. Petersburg race on March 28.
And then there is the struggle to get Graham Rahal into a seat. After losing his sponsor (Mc Donalds) just last month, the second-generation IndyCar driver was cut from NHL and has been scrambling to put a deal togeather. Widely considered to be a star of the future, his plight has been the subject of much angst and conjecture in the press and on the indycar-themed forum boards.
Now Curt Cavin of the Indianapolis Star reports that he will participate in the Sao Paulo & St. Petersburg events (*edit: turns out that the deal is for St. Pete & Birmingham, so Rahal will NOT be at Sao Paulo), driving for Sarah Fisher Racing. Undoubtedly, he is still working hard on landing a ride for other events - if not the balance of the season.