2014 Race schedule (Page 1 of 11)

If you're trying to plan, you can assume the schedule will look roughly similar to this years. roughly. Take a look at the events section and compare the schedules from years past to this year and you'll see some similarities. That will let you start to plan what races will be near you around what time frames.

Of course it could all completely change next year. Never know.

Hopefully there will be more events in the midwest next year.

Road America I think is hard unless its another weekday race.  It sounds like our choices are snow tires because it is early in the years or snow tires because its late.  A true 24 would be great though.

True 24 at VIR.  Worth the drive, no question.

Mid Ohio would be amazing

I did Road Atlanta with Brand C racing last December.  I'd never seen the track before, raced it virtually, or even looked at a track map.

Boy, was it fun.

A not insignificant part of me wishes I could race your style.  Is cheaper, less work, and at least as much fun, once you find a few high quality teams you can race with on a regular basis.   I'm now in waaaaay too deep for that, though.

For the Midwest I think the formula is simple.
Give us four races and try to keep at least three of them out of the snowy season

I can handle one race with a chance of snow showers but not 2 out of three.

Things that will probably be on the schedule:

Carolina Motorsports Park -  March-ish
Sears Point/Sonoma/Whateverit'scalled - March-ish
Gingerman - April
High Plains - Late May/Early June
Summit Point - June
Somewhere in the PNW (probably The Ridge) - June/July
Arse-Sweat (A California track) - June/July
NHMS - Late October
Arse-Freeze (A different CA track) - December

Lemons is not going back to Nelson Ledges. Unless Mid-Ohio changes the maximum car counts or track rental, Lemons is not going there.

Chump ran Putnam Park in 2010. We considered shaking down the Nixon-scort for that race, but we ultimately didn't because it's really in BFE. Paddock space looks pretty scarce, too, although they appear to have made some upgrades.

I think the Midwest schedule will probably be the same three tracks next year, but they may juggle the order and dates of the races. It's possible they'll have two Autobahn dates, but that didn't really play well when they did it in 2012 and I wouldn't expect it next year.

Way back at the '09 Lemons race at Nelson, I loaned one of the flagging stations my generator and battery charger so they could keep the caution lights lit.  The track custodian came and hung out with us and we were having a good time until we got onto the subject of the track and he said it was owned by "a bunch of cheap Jews from Cleveland," and that they didn't want to spend any money on it.  I made my excuses and got out of the conversation shortly after that.

Still had a blast and wish they would upgrade it a little.  Strategically placed proper barriers and a repave would go a long way.

From my conversations with the rumor mill, VIR won't happen. Not going to get into the rumormongering about why. It's not for lack of Jay trying is all I'll say. But they won't give us a date.

I suspect we will have at least 2 Texas races next year, one in the spring and one in the fall. I'd bet on the spring race being earlier than it was this year. I think there will be a surprise or two on the schedule, because there usually seems to be.

With regard to Putnam Park, I recall a conversation with Jay (maybe at the 5 year party?) and Jeff. They looked at Putnam for the '10 season, but there were substantial problems with the way that we do races. The paddock is a problem, plus they don't allow any overnight parking or camping owing to some operating agreement with the county. So the logistics just wouldn't work out there. The fact that Chump ran one race there a few years back and hasn't returned there indicates that it's not a very good opportunity for whatever reason.

I for one would love to see us race at the new track outside of New Orleans, but the historical car count at NPR causes real problems for HQ, and no matter which way you slice it, that's a long haul for pretty much all of the Texas teams (yeah, I know, other teams have long hauls to races. I'm not making a moral equivalency argument here, just a historical observation).  But that new track looks really interesting. Although it's probably as flat as a ________ (this is a complete your metaphor adventure).

FWIW, this is the time of the year when all motorsports schedules are really in serious flux. The big gigs (NASCAR, F1, Indy) get the first preference, then stuff like ALMS/GranAm/UnitedSportsCar and WSC, then you've got the melange of PCA and BMWCCA and SVRA and other track rental stuff. We're usually lumped in with those latter guys, which is why we don't always get the dates we'd prefer.

As far as I'm concerned, we should be the support race for the road course race they're talking about for Indy in early May, but I'm having a hard time getting anybody at IMS to take me up on that.