Franchitti's return date uncertain

The Scot suffered a fracture to his left ankle during an accident on Saturday's NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Talladega Superspeedway, which sidelined him from the Sprint Cup event on Sunday.

Franchitti is set to fly to Indianapolis where he will visit an orthopedic surgeon, who will determine how long it will take for the former Indy 500 winner to fully recover from his injury.

"He's ok," Franchitti's teammate Juan Pablo Montoya told autosport.com. "He's going to Indianapolis to get checked by Dr. (Terry) Trammell who has always seen him before. We'll know more after that. They say he could be out for two or three weeks but we have to wait and see."

Chip Ganassi Racing's Steve Hmiel said on Sunday at Talladega that there is not a replacement driver in place yet for the events Franchitti may miss, despite David Stremme filling in for him on Sunday at Talladega.

"We'd like to have one standout guy like David Stremme do it all," Hmiel said. "He's not available, so we may end up picking and choosing a little bit based on the fact that we have to qualify this car into the race."

Following Sunday's race and despite Stremme crashing on the last lap, the No. 40 Ganassi car of has moved up from 39th to 36th place in the owners' standing, only one shy of having a spot guaranteed on the grid for the coming event.