Oct. 17 newsstand: Alex Lloyd to TCGR

The first SillySeason domino is down ... IPS champ Alex Lloyd has signed a development deal with Target Chip Ganassi Racing.

It's likely he'll drive a third car for TCGR as a part-time entry in the IndyCar Series and also in Grand Am.
IndyCar.com notes the news
Says Alex: "I can really learn the traits of the IndyCar Series and grow within the team. I feel that although I won't be doing a full season next year, the races that I will be doing I will be in one of the best cars out there with a team I've admired for years way before I came over. For me, that's actually a more exciting thing than saying I'll be doing a full year in a mid-field car."

Says Mike Hull: "He is a talented driver and a perfect candidate for our development program. In the span of 10 days, he took the wheel of two very different race cars for the first time. He showed at Sebring that he is ready to race an IndyCar, and then at Infineon Raceway for the Grand Am event, proved under race conditions that his skills were immediately equal to the best drivers in the very competitive high-horsepower Daytona Protoypes."

The SpeedTV story is somewhat similar.

This is also noted in the official IRL news & notes
Also, teams will be allowed four test days during the off-season in addition to the open tests, and 41-year-old Italian motorcycle racer Alex Pigione tested an IPS car for Cheever Racing.

ICS drivers in other series
Buddy Rice 15th in A1GP, TK to run season finale with Herta in ALMS

We can't have a newsstand without a DWTS story
So here is one, from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Of note: Eddie Gossage has offered the first one to be voted off the show -- Helio or Mark Cuban -- a chance to dance before the taxicab race at TMS in November.

This isn't going to play well
in some NASCAR circles. NASCAR Scene's Kenny Bruce says open-wheel defectors are good for taxicab racing.

But this might: The best of the OW-to-cabs stories
I'm trying to stay away from these stories, because they're like a broken record. But this, by far, is the best, most thorough analysis of the OW-to-taxicabs stories, from USA Today.
Casey Mears gets the award for throwing eggs out of the rearview mirror: "There's no question open-wheel racing just keeps getting worse in the U.S.That's the biggest reason why you're seeing guys come over here. It's not, 'Hey, I want to go stock car racing like I've dreamed all my life.' It's, 'Wow, there's nothing there. I've got to go stock car racing to make a living.' There's nowhere else to go."

And Clint Bowyer gets the "them furriners are takin' our jobs" award: "I just don't want to see young drivers like myself lose chances of getting here because of a big name getting a freebie. I hate to see too many of those spots taken by people with a big name that have already been successful in other sports and just think, 'Hey, let's try this out. If it works, it works. If it doesn't, then it doesn't.' " (Uh, Clint, Dario Franchitti won an Indy 500 and an IRL title; JPM won an Indy 500; JV won a world championship; Sam Hornish Jr. won an Indy 500 and 3 IRL titles ... and what exactly have you done beyond the Busch Series?).

Says A.J. Allmendinger, with some not-so-good words for CCWS: "In the long term, if I make NASCAR work, am I going to make more money? Hell yeah. But it also was that I was in a series that I didn't know was going to be around the next year."

And, says IRL PR guru Terry Angstadt: "We feel good about the stable of talented drivers who are getting to be well known. We've got lots of work to do marketing our series, but we feel we've got a lot to sell. We could not feel more optimistic about the future."

In other series news
According to Justin Wilson, CC's RuSports team is closing down. This can be IRL-related in two ways: 1) Losing one of their top teams can be a death blow to a CC field that is already down to 17 cars, and 2) Wilson & sponsor CDW have long been rumored to be shopping their wares to the IndyCar Series (or possibly ALMS).
However, JW says: "I hope I will be back in Champ Cars, but you can never be certain. I will just have to see what my options are for next year."