The signs are already plentiful that next season there may be more drivers than ever before sidelined without rides.  With more quality drivers available and fewer cars in which they can compete it’s a buyer’s market for team owners seeking to save salaries on high-priced handlers.

The signs are already plentiful that next season there may be more drivers than ever before sidelined without rides.  With more quality drivers available and fewer cars in which they can compete it’s a buyer’s market for team owners seeking to save salaries on high-priced handlers. 

With the cancellation of the second CSK car out of the Worsham camp driver Jeff Arend is likely to be on foot, joining the likes of Phil Burkhart, Whit Bazemore, Tony Bartone and several others.  Burkhart could be in the strongest position of all if John Force’s recuperation encounters even the slightest setback.  While he’s planning a January return others are predicting either Phoenix or Gainesville as more reasonable and likely target dates.  That could keep Burkhart employed for longer than some have speculated, but he’s one of the few hired guns out there in that kind of position. 

Worth consideration is that Antron Brown is slated to try and upgrade to a Top Fuel license in a David Powers Motorsports entry, the one being temporarily driven by David Baca.  Should Brown qualify for a license he could become a hot commodity because of his well-established and positive reputation with the media.  That he might then become Powers’s permanent driver is also a possibility, which would then relegate Baca back to the sidelines.  But as far as the others are concerned, only the few weeks between the two Pomona races will tell that tale.