One other potential opening for Matos may come from existing team boss Gary Peterson, who has made no secret of his desire to move up to the senior series in future.

The former IPS driver, who was forced to quit after an accident, has revelled in his relationship with AGR, and intends to keep working with the giant in Indy Lights at least, but is equally keen to establish his AFS outfit on the top rung of the IRL ladder.

"It just means so much [to win the Lights title]," he admitted, "As a driver, I never had a chance to win a championship. I drove the [Indy Pro] Series for five years until I had an accident, but I was too old anyway. So to start working with Rafa, Luyendyk, the rest of them, just great kids - it's so satisfying to be able to bring these guys up and hopefully they'll move up to the IRL next year. That's what we want to do.

"I'm working on [my own IndyCar team], and I'm working on sponsorship. I'm not sure how far along we are yet, but that's the reason I decided to close my race operations and merge with AGR, in order to get the benefit of the engineering, learn behind the scenes. I'm not sure if it will happen next year. I hope so but, if not, it will be the following year."

Whenever Peterson's dream comes to fruition, he says he would have no hesitation in looking to hire Matos.

"He's done the pre-testing for us at AGR and he's done a fantastic job," he noted, "He's driving with Tony [Kanaan] and everybody else out there, Marco [Andretti], and the testing that he's done has paid off in our results at Watkins Glen and other tracks that we tested. The whole programme works with the Indy Lights programme, the testing that comes with it, the Indy Lights driver that gets to drive along with one of the IRL drivers, it's really something I'm pretty excited about.

"He's done a fantastic job and he gets the opportunity. I'd be glad to have him back driving with us, but I'm not sure if we can find the sponsorship. If not, I'll support anything that Rafa does. He's done a great job this year."

Antinucci, meanwhile, may have to rely on support from a little closer to home if he is to finally make the jump to the IndyCar Series, even though he insists that he is hoping for something bigger to come his way.

"It's early, [but] this is when the season starts, discussions, preparation for '09," he said, still disappointed at having missed on the Lights crown, "I hope to stay in the IndyCar world and, hopefully, graduate to the IndyCar Series. That's my dream, my goal. I want to be in a top team and be able to fight for wins and championships at the top level."

While the likes of AGR, Ganassi and Penske are unlikely to be beating a path to his door for 2009, however, the former F3 frontrunner in European and Japan might be able to call on the help of his uncle, Indianapolis 500 winner Eddie Cheever, to make his dream into partial reality.

"I hope Eddie and the whole Team Cheever [operation] manage to pull something together to do part-time, full-time, or just Indy in the IndyCar Series, because that's where I really want to be," he noted in the build-up to Chicagoland, "That's where I think his heart is, too, as well.