The IndyCar series has taken many hits this year, from the down economy to the poor racing at Kansas, Indy and Texas. But the most telling indicator of the health of the series remains the unstable car counts from race to race. At Texas, we had a season high of 24 cars (apart from Indy) which followed the season low of 21 at Milwaukee.
Well, this weekend for Iowa appears to be more of the same. Only 20 cars showed up on the entry list. No part time entries were lodged for this race, probably due to the likelihood of accidents on the short tracks. But on top of that, we lost one Vision car last week when Ryan Hunter-Reay was moved over to Foyt’s team to replace Vitor as he mends from his Indy back injury. As was evidenced by Ryan’s poor performance on the ovals, his Vision car was not well funded at all. Now Foyt gets to put some additional Izod stickers on the fully funded ABC car and have the only guy in the series to have won races in IRL, CART and CCWS pilot his car.
As for the other loss, Alex Tagliani with Conquest racing will again miss out this weekend. Conquest has been trying desperately to get a full season effort together, but has missed Kansas, Milwaukee and now Iowa. This does not bode well for them, since they have been considered part of the TEAM program that guarantees them a level purse amount from each race they compete in as long as they participate in the entire season. This could have been their last chance to stay in the program, but now that they are missing their 3rd race of the 7 so far this season, I can’t imagine they will be part of the TEAM program going forward. Since they will no longer be collecting that guaranteed purse money, then they will probably not be contesting any more races this season except for the two Canadian events. We will wait and see.
Here is the entry list:
| Entrant | Car | Driver |
| A.J. Foyt Enterprises | 14 | Ryan Hunter-Reay |
| Andretti Green Racing | 7 | Danica Patrick |
| Andretti Green Racing | 11 | Tony Kanaan |
| Andretti Green Racing | 26 | Marco Andretti |
| Andretti Green Racing | 27 | Hideki Mutoh |
| CURB/Agajanian/Team 3G | 98 | Jaques Lazier |
| Dale Coyne Racing | 18 | Justin Wilson |
| Dreyer & Reinbold Racing | 23 | Tomas Scheckter |
| Dreyer & Reinbold Racing | 24 | Mike Conway (R) |
| HVM Racing | 13 | E.J. Viso |
| KV Racing Technology | 5 | Mario Moraes |
| Luczo Dragon Racing | 2 | Raphael Matos (R) |
| Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing | 2 | Graham Rahal |
| Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing | 6 | Robert Doornbos (R) |
| Panther Racing | 4 | Dan Wheldon |
| Target Chip Ganassi Racing | 9 | Scott Dixon |
| Target Chip Ganassi Racing | 10 | Dario Franchitti |
| Team Penske | 3 | Helio Castroneves |
| Team Penske | 6 | Ryan Briscoe |
| Vision Racing | 20 | Ed Carpenter |
This weekend’s event will be televised on ABC Sunday at 1pm EST.
