INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – Gentlemen, start your dealmaking.

With a handful of drivers still looking for rides at this year’s Indianapolis 500 and plenty of backup cars available, this weekend’s toughest challenge may be finding a way to merge the two and create bumping.

“I think that would be good,” team owner Greg Beck said. “That’s part of what needs to happen. It makes Indy, Indy.”

Race organizers are used to the second week’s mad dash.

The last two years, they needed cars just to fill the traditional 33-car field. This year, they hope to have enough cars to turn Sunday’s final qualifying session from fill day into more of a traditional Bump Day. Twenty-two cars qualified last Sunday, the first day of time trials, and during the frantic final hour, three drivers were bumped. Alex Barron later requalified, pushing Jaques Lazier and Patrick Carpentier into the group of 11 still waiting to qualify.

But that’s not the way bumping used to be done on the 21/2-mile oval.

In previous years, cars could only get knocked out when all the starting spots were filled. This year, the format was changed to create more drama. Only 11 spots were to be filled each of the first three qualifying days, with the final session reserved exclusively for bumping. Pole Day was rained out, so the top 22 spots were earned Sunday.

With 11 cars remaining, a full field is likely to start the May 29 race unless there’s a crash. The question is whether there will be any deals. If so, this weekend’s qualifying could become more suspenseful. Some owners may withdraw their previous four-lap averages and requalify, something three drivers did last weekend.

And some in Gasoline Alley believe it’s possible.

“I suspect you’re going to have at least a couple of cars – two, three, something like that,” said Lee Kunzman, team manager for Ron Hemelgarn.

Who will take a shot? Nobody’s sure. Discussions aren’t expected to heat until teams know what speed it will take to make the field.

Until then, teams such as Beck and Hemelgarn, who haven’t qualified, will be working against an abbreviated schedule that was shortened again by Thursday’s rainout.

Beck hired 23-year-old Arie Luyendyk Jr., son of the two-time Indy winner, on Wednesday. Luyendyk hopes to join the list of father-son combinations who have started the race.

Kunzman replaced injured rookie Paul Dana, who broke two bones in his back in a crash last Friday, with Jimmy Kite in the No. 91 car. Dana doesn’t need surgery, but doctors won’t let him drive in the race. So both teams are scrambling to get their new drivers acquainted with the track and team.

“I call it teething, and any time you have teething, that can be a problem,” Kunzman said. “But you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. Sometimes when you get your back up against a wall, you do things quicker and better.”

There also are some compelling story lines.

The biggest is the return of Kenny Brack, the 1999 Indy champ who hasn’t raced in an Indy car since a crash at Texas in October 2003. Brack spent three months in the hospital after the crash but is now making a comeback with defending Indy winner Buddy Rice out.

Rice, last year’s pole-sitter, injured his back and had a concussion in a crash last week. Doctors later found he had a partially torn ligament in his neck and recommended rest. Speedway medical director Dr. Henry Bock said Rice will be reassessed in about three weeks.

Brack and Carpentier each logged 129 laps in Wednesday’s practice. No other drivers did more. Brack also was the fastest nonqualifier Wednesday with a fast lap of 225.774 mph.

“We’ve got to get in the show,” Brack said. “But I think if you start 23rd or 33rd, over 500 miles, it’s going to be a very marginal difference.”

Two Foyts also will try to extend their family tradition. A.J. Foyt IV, grandson of the four-time winner and the youngest IRL driver at age 20, is trying to make his third Indy start while Larry Foyt hopes to make his second career start on the track that helped make his father famous. Foyt’s team also has a third car entered, and if Foyt hired another driver that would give race organizers 34 cars – meaning someone would be bumped.

In the unlikely event both Foyts fail to qualify, it would mark the first time since 1958 the elder A.J. Foyt, Indy’s first four-time winner, hasn’t started a car as a driver or owner.

IRL founder Tony George also has two nonqualified cars on his fledgling team, Vision Racing. Ed Carpenter, George’s stepson, won the 2003 Futaba Freedom 100 at Indy. George’s other driver, Jeff Ward, has three top-10 finishes in six career 500 starts. This would be his first Indy start since 2002.

AP-ES-05-20-05 0324EDT