Wild Speculation: A Follow-Up

A few interesting things have happened this week leading into tomorrow's Mid-Ohio race that I thought I'd report on.

-First off: Bobby D, formerly of Newman/Haas/Lanigan, is now in a second car for his old team, HVM (which was Minardi USA in Champ Car's final year). He'll be bringing much-needed experience to a rather young team; their driver so far has been E.J. Viso, who is only in his second season of top-flight motorsports.

-Mario Moraes is having the weekend off to mourn the death of his father. The entire IndyCar family mourns with Mario, but the show must go on; Paul Tracy will pilot the #5 car at Mid-Ohio, a track where Tracy certainly knows the rounds.

-I should have reported this after hearing a phone interview on 1070 The Fan with Gil de Ferran and Simon Pagenaud; the two of them acted so coy about suggestions that Gil would go to IndyCar (possibly dragging Simon with him) that it was ridiculous. Yesterday, in one of IndyCar's worst-kept secrets, Gil announced that he is retiring as a sports car driver to start a two-car IndyCar team. There have been no driver confirmations, but the logical picks at this point would be Takuma Sato (who Honda wants to put in an IndyCar) and Pagenaud.

Not much news to report on other teams at this point and, of course, Danica still has given no solid indication of her intentions. Cars are qualifying as we speak and ALMS takes to the course at 3. No live blog this weekend, as I've started my new work filming football practice for the Indiana Hoosiers -- I'll be at work from 2-8 tomorrow so it'll have to just be a review. Ciao.