Is Jaques Lazier an injury substitution at 3G? and Other Replacements & Rumors for IndyCar's weekend at Texas

As you may or may not have seen by checking out the IndyCar Series entry list for Texas Motor Speedway this weekend, we already have 3 announced driver changes with Milka Duno returning to Dreyer & Reinbold's #23 (Scheckter out), A.J. Foyt IV in at Foyt with Tracy out; even though according to Tracy, he wanted to finish the entire season with Foyt. Lastly we got Jaques Lazier replacing Stanton Barrett at Team 3G.

Duno is explainable as a cash flow issue, and A.J. Foyt himself said he does not want to put Tracy back in the car because it brings a lot of attention to them when they do so "embarrassing" (his words) like they did at Milwaukee. Honestly I think I'd rather have Tracy, not for the attention, but the guy has history, and I'd much rather have him hashing out problems with a car at this point; its odd because Foyt's quotes almost read as if he simply is getting Tracy out of the car so people won't pay attention to how bad they might be doing...

Now lastly, a lot of people are calling the move of 3G to Jaques Lazier, a smart move to get the car set up by a veteran; which it may very well be. But for everyone out there, get one thing straight. Barrett is no Milka Duno or Marty Roth; first, unlike Duno he owns a part of the team, and second he's shown some real signs of talent. That said... it looks as if Stanton's being replaced might not even be a driving issue after all so much as a injury substitution, as we hear from Stanton himself:

"Unfortunately it (Milwakuee practice crash) was such a heavy impact we were not able to repair the car at the race track and was not able to race this weekend. I have been very sore from the impact and taking some time to recover. Not certain what the next weekend is going to bring with regards to running the IndyCar. I have to make sure my back is not as sore as it is now to be able to race those cars. It is really unfortunate because it might keep me from running in a few races."

Whatever the reason might be, that is an interesting development; almost as much as the choice of Jacques over the likes of Townsend Bell, Servia, etc. Jacques is a great driver and has won before, but hes at least 2 years removed from the cockpit. I'm just hoping something can show up on 3G's sidepod; or really hopefully a return to the great white/blue paint scheme!

Then we get to twitter nation, where in the past 2 days both Tomas Scheckter and now Alex Tagliani have said they are heading down to Texas, or excited to be heading to Texas. Specifically:

Tomas: "Looking forward to texas."

Tags: "Round 'em up... we're off to TX this weekend. yee haw!"

yet niether can be found on the entry list. Now one can easily assume Tags will be the Conquest TBA driver, but as of yet all we have is a rumor that Scheckter will be in a new 3rd Dreyer and Reinbold car. If he is or not, it'd I hope all is well behind the scenes, because to the public, all we know is that first practice is tomorrow.

Pictures via indycar.com