Last Minute Deals
Graham Rahal
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.
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For those of you who read this article prior to 9am ET/2pm GMT on Thursday, there is a correction: Graham Rahal's deal with SFR is for the St. Petersburg and Birmingham races, and not the Sao Paulo race.
