Wild, Baseless Speculation Based Slightly in Facts

Okay, so we've had mild sprinklings of silly season throughout the year, starting from week one in St. Petersburg. However, as everyone mildly associated with auto racing will tell you, August is a magical month for silliness; the new schedule comes out, sponsors start giving the teams their "hmmm, I don't know..." speeches, and budgets are being put together for cars, crews, and supplies for the next season.

We already know a few things:

-Bobby D is Bobby Gone from Newman/Haas/Lanigan. No matter what anyone in the world of PR might tell you, this one had to be due to the fact that Bobby and Graham Rahal were pretty close to stabbing each other on more than one occasion. N/H/L is far more heavily invested in Graham than it is in the ride-buying Bobby D, and Graham has been much more marketable for them and sponsor McDonalds than Bobby could ever hope to be.

-Alex Tagliani has apparently killed any chance of having a ride with Conquest for the rest of his career, and I'm not sure anyone else will want him at this point. Nelson Phillipe is apparently in the car for all remaining races but the Japanese round, where Kosuke Matsuura will be the pilot.

We've already speculated on a few unconfirmed things:

-De Ferran Motorsports, under the direction of 2003 Indianapolis 500 champ Gil de Ferran, is supposedly looking to make the jump from a struggling ALMS to IndyCar. It doesn't seem like Gil, who is one of the drivers for that team, would want to pilot an IndyCar again. Simon Pagenaud, his second driver, would likely be in a car. The other is rumored to be Takuma Sato, formerly of Honda F1 and Super Aguri F1, will be the other driver, which could have an interesting domino effect on the rest of the league...

-It's also thought that Patron-Highcroft or Fernandez motorsports might make the jump as well. Highcroft employs Scott Sharp, who has obviously been around the block several times in the IRL, so that would be a sensible move. Fernandez is owned by a former open-wheeler (Adrian Fernandez), so he knows his way around the business. More to come on these guys, for sure.

-The big story, of course, is the drama surrounding Mrs. Hospenthal. I'm not going to go all-out on this, since it's well-publicized by just about everyone. The consensus right now is that she'll be in a third Ganassi car with maybe some part-time sports car and part-time Busch Grand Nationwideinal Series.

-The team that gets slaughtered this off-season will be Andretti-Green Racing. I think they have no shot at getting Danica, especially with the abrasive personality of Marco Andretti being on the team. If Takuma Sato goes to De Ferran Motorsports, then it's likely that the main sponsorship on Hideki Mutoh's car will move to that one. There is a distinct possibility that the team could go from four cars to two in one fell swoop.

So, I'm going to give way to some great, wild speculation that will probably never take place because, in my head, it makes sense.

-Ana Beatriz needs...NEEDS an IndyCar ride. She at least needs a test. Now, it's very well-known that Sam Schmidt Motorsports doesn't seem to want to field a full-time Indy program. Besides which, his Indy Lights team is one of the best and I think he's having more fun where he is. What I see happening is that Sam Schmidt and Andretti-Green get together to put Ana in a car as a sort of replacement for Danica. I think Ana is equally as marketable (though she won't do as well in our superficial society...in other words, no GoDaddy ads), and I'm sure that, if she doesn't already, she would get along quite well with Tony Kanaan. If AGR wants to hold onto at least one of their cars and make some sort of splash after losing Danica, Bia might be a good way to go.

-Mario Romancini, also of Indy Lights, needs to get a good look from an IRL team as well. He killed it in the Freedom 100, coming from the back to finish third in the fairly wild finish they had there. He also led wire-to-wire at the Milwaukee round of the Lights season, which is no small feat for someone who's never driven that track. I have no idea where Mario would end up, except that it needs to be an IndyCar.

-Paul Tracy NEEDS to be in a car....FULL...TIME. I have a good feeling that he might end up with KV Racing next season. Mario Moraes has been something of a wild card this season, with very good drives ending in some sort of unnecessary destruction. I'm not sure of the particulars of his Tequila Azul sponsorship, but I'm not so sure it covers the cost of the various destroyed Dallaras in their shop. Vasser and Tracy, in spite of their spat after PT divebombed Mario at Edmonton, get along very well and are very similar personality-wise. If some Canadian company would be kind enough to jump on full-time, Tracy could be in the #5 next season.

Finally, not wild speculation, but pretty disappointing to some ChampCar fans:

-Sebastien Bourdais will not be driving an IndyCar any time soon for one very good reason: his wife doesn't want to leave France. As everyone should know, if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. Besides which, Seb's got a pretty good thing going with Peugeot and their killer diesel sports cars, and there will be plenty of money and glory for him when (not if) he finally takes victory at Le Mans.

As with my race predictions, all of this will certainly end up being completely inaccurate. I'll try and keep the internet updated on what I know, but I'm guessing I won't even be able to keep myself up to date on this stuff. More to come...