"It's a tough economy out there right now, I think everyone knows that," said Walker, who ran full-time efforts in IRL and CART in 1999. "We've turned off a lot of big companies in the past eight years and, whether it's CART or IRL, we're not good news.

"We're trying to sell either series (to sponsors) to keep the doors open but our interest is to raise enough funding for two cars in CART."

By feeding its flock this season, CART was able to keep 18 cars on the track and fulfill its contractual obligations with most promoters (although CART promoted four races in 2003).

Does it have any chance to reach that number in 2004?

"We're confident we'll have at least 18 cars and potentially more," replied John Lopes, CART's vice president of racing operations.

A quick phone check of CART's mainstays yields 11 confirmed cars. Newman-Haas (two), Forsythe Racing (two), Herdez (two), Team Rahal (one), PK Racing (one), RocketSports (one), Fernandez Racing (one) and Dale Coyne (one).

Carl Russo, who captured this year's Toyota Atlantic title with A.J. Allmendinger, is bringing the young American star and his RuSports Team up to Champ Car in 2004 -- so that's 12.

Bachelart and Walker seem fairly confident of one car efforts, while Fittipaldi and partner Jamie Dingman are probably 50/50 at best. Patrick Racing is a big question mark and American Spirit is very doubtful, although Johansson may pursue starting another team.

Obviously, it's going to take either Gentilozzi's RocketSports team, Bobby Rahal's, Coyne's (or all three) to run two cars to make 16-18 a reality.

"Despite what is being written, the field is coming together," said Lopes.

	"	I can't imagine how much has to happen to get this deal done because we've got a lot of skeletons in our closet and it's not an easy job. I don't think Mr. Gentilozzi can tell us what he's going to do until he gets the company. But I believe they have a plan. "
		— Derrick Walker

The lack of information coming from OWRS may be in line with SEC policy but it's not good for business.

"We're all trying to get sponsorship in place but it's hard until the deal is consumated," said McGee. "I think they've got some good things to say but they just can't talk yet."

Bachelart understands OWRS being muted with the public but wishes he knew more about the future.

"I don't know if they're busy or on vacation but I know the communication has not been great," he said from his Indianapolis shop. "I know there is a transition period but I sent a message to Gentilozzi last week and I'm still waiting for him to call.

"It's hard to buy cars or plan anything when you're not sure what's happening and I had to keep postponing meetings with sponsors until we finally got a schedule."

Ah yes, the schedule. It's got more loose ends than Whoopi Goldberg's hair.

Miami, Mexico City, Fontana, Calif., and Seoul, Korea, are said to have sanctioning agreements in place but no dates. Fontana, which is suing CART after the postponement/cancellation at California Speedway, claims there's no chance of a CART race until the litigation is resolved.

Portland has a date with an asterisk because it's subject to final commercial terms while Las Vegas also has a date but no confirmed venue.

And Brands Hatch, England, is listed as yet to be determined but the Motoring News reports the financially-troubled road circuit will not be playing host to a CART event in 2004.

Worse yet, the season opens Feb. 22 in St. Petersburg, Fla., and then doesn't run again until April 18 at Long Beach, Calif. And open wheel owners wonder why NASCAR is so far ahead of them?

"We definitely need to move some races up to the beginning of the year," said McGee.

Lopes said the eventual goal is to run from April to October but "because of existing agreements, we can't always get the perfect schedule and it's going to take some time to get there.

"But at least we didn't kill the teams with three races in a row."

Of course, the flip side is that if OWRS can't save the show and enough cars can't be mustered up, the IRL is the alternative. General Motors is supposedly trying to woo Patrick Racing and Toyota is after Carl Haas, who has been testing Bruno Junqueira in an IRL car and will likely run the Indianapolis 500 without longtime partner Paul Newman regardless of CART's state.

"If we can't do CART and there's an opportunity to do the IRL, we can be in either series," said Walker.

"We would consider it (IRL) because we're in the business of motor racing," said Wiggins, whose Herdez team was originally founded by the late Tony Bettenhausen. "But I still feel like CART is the best series out there and that's where we want to be."

Walker isn't worried about CART's car count or the schedule as much as he is leadership and the overall public perception.

"I think the single most important thing coming out of this is not whether OWRS buys this thing but who is going to run this company? We need to have the guy who's going to run the show on board and we need to know who that is. That's my biggest concern about CART. Nothing else."

Although he is asked the same question every day about the once-powerful series.

"Is CART going to be around? Sure, I get that every day," continued Walker. "But with all the negative stories out there we need to talk about what is going on and the plans. I know it's difficult to talk until the company is sold but we need balance.

"Because the guts of what CART has is still there."

But keeping the body intact is still going to be the tricky part.

Things are tough all over
While CART's struggles are public knowledge, there is also some quiet blood-letting on the IRL side.

Morris Nunn recently laid off members of Felipe Giaffone's No. 21 team and parted ways with the Brazilian driver because Hollywood Cigarettes is pulling back, if not out, of Indy-car racing with Giaffone. Kelley Racing already let half of its crew go in its scale-back to one car and John Menard closed his doors to merge with Panther Racing (Panther has picked up a couple of Menard's mechanics). Hemelgarn Racing only had a few full-timers in 2003 and two of them have gone back to New Zealand.

"There are so many mechanics from both series out of work right now but thankfully we've been able to keep everyone," said John O'Gara, team manager of Dryer & Reinbold Racing. "We don't know if we're running one or two cars but our guys are keeping busy.

"I feel for those other guys because it's real tough right now."

Robin Miller covers open wheel racing for ESPN.com.