Champ Car silly season

After eight and half turbulent months in Formula 1 with Jaguar, Rahal returns to CART on a regular basis at Vancouver this weekend and he's got plenty on his plate. First of all there's the championship to win, or lose, with Brack. The Swede took the point lead back in May when he scored his first win of the year at the Motegi oval in Japan. Kenny stayed on top of the championship through the next three months and eight races only to lose the point lead to Helio Castroneves at Elkhart Lake the day after he and Ganassi had announced their plans for next year!

The Penske team has been the strongest this year with its Castroneves and defending champion Gil de Ferran driver pairing and it will be interesting to see if Rahal can help get Brack and his team's championship challenge back on track. Can the underdog come back to beat a powerful team like Penske? Time will tell.

Rahal also has to find the right driver to replace Brack next year and another driver to take over from Max Papis who was told at Mid-Ohio that his contract is not likely to be renewed. Rahal has talked to Alex Barron and is also interested in Memo Gidley whose future with Chip Ganassi is uncertain beyond the end of this year. Rahal also has a contract with last year's Toyota/Atlantic champion Buddy Rice who is idle this year. Rice is working as a driver coach and technical consultant to DSTP Racing with whom he won the Atlantic title.

At Elkhart Lake, Ganassi said: "Our second driver isn't decided and won't be decided for some time." That means Gidley and Elkhart winner Bruno Junqueira are racing for their jobs over the season's last two months. Ganassi is also interested in Oriol Servia and rookie phenomenon Scott Dixon, who's shown tremendous ability this year with the uncertain PacWest team. PacWest boss Bruce McCaw is searching for sponsorship in an effort to strengthen the team, but nobody is quite sure what the outfit's future may be. PacWest is a Toyota team, like Ganassi, and a switch to Ganassi for Dixon makes plenty of sense.

Changes are also afoot at Patrick Racing with Indy Lights champion-elect Townsend Bell a likely candidate to replace Robert Moreno. Bell has shown well in two tests for Patrick and also has much-needed sponsorship from Direct Satellite. But what of Moreno? "I'm not going away," says the little Brazilian. "I'm still getting better and better."

Also facing the possibility of non-renewal on his contract is Alex Zanardi. CART's 1997 and '98 champion has had a difficult return to Champ cars, looking no more competitive than he did in his 1999 season in F1 with Williams. Team boss Mo Nunn is beginning to lose his patience with old friend Zanardi and after taking up his option with Tony Kanaan during the Elkhart weekend, Nunn may be looking for a young hot shot to replace the Italian.

Among those teams not playing any 'silly season' games this year are Penske, Green, Forsythe, Newman-Haas, Fernandez and Walker, all of which will continue next year with the same driver and equipment combinations. If stability means results, then the smart money should go on the Penske and Green teams to beat the Brack-Rahal combination in this year's championship. Any bets?