A return to speedway tracks with a strong open-wheel racing history like The Milwaukee Mile, New Hampshire Motor Speedway and Las Vegas Speedway, a retro doubleheader at Texas and a brand new urban circuit at Baltimore streets are the main storylines of the 2011 IZOD IndyCar schedule.
The 2011 IZOD Indycars championship will be consist of 18 races with equal 9 oval tracks and roadcourses/street tracks. Yet in 2011 season oval and roadcourse races will be more mixed in an attempt to increase racing diversity and racing difficulty for the drivers. 2001 seaosn will start relatively late with the first race to be held on April 10th in an attempt to avoid race postponements due to rain downpours that may spoil the race attendance and the season comes to an end at October 2nd.
Newest race on schedule will be Baltimore Grand Prix which will be held at Baltimore streets in an attempt to attract more Indycars fans in the East coast.
The Milwaukee Mile is one of the most historical open-wheel tracks hosting races since 1933 and is coming back after being off 2010 schedule. Milwaukee drew crowds of 50,000-plus in the ‘90s with CART before attendance lagged last decade as both IRL and Champ staged races for a couple years. Dario Franchitti, who triumphed in the IRL’s first visit to the legendary mile in 2004 commented:
"That’s the best news of all because Milwaukee is a driver’s track we all love and it’s got so much bleedin’ history. I know TK (Tony Kanaan), Dixie (Scott Dixon) and I were all hoping we’d get to go back to Milwaukee."
Another historical short oval is the New Hampshire Motor Speedway, which is returning following a 13-year absence. CART ran there from 1992-95 before IRL took over from 1996-98. Loudon used to number 50,000 in CART’s final appearance in 1995 but only drew a few thousand in its 3-year IRL run following the spit between ChampCars and IRL. Emerson Fittipaldi, Paul Tracy and winner Nigel Mansell staged one of the classic oval-track duels at Loudon in ’93. Paul Tracy reflects:
"People still come up to me and talk about that race. just remember it was a helluva track with a lot of passing."
Las Vegas Motor Speedway is the other venue IndyCar back on schedule, this time as series finale race although an official announcement hasnt been made yet due to a lack of title sponsor. IRL ran at the 1.5-mile oval from 1996-2000 while Champ Car staged street races in 2004 and 2005. There is an outside chance that if Vegas cannot find a title sponsor, the season finale would be held at California Speedway in Fontana, which is an ISC track.
Loudon and Vegas are both owned by Smith, whose IndyCar resume already includes schedule entries at Kentucky, Sonoma and Texas. Smith is now IndyCar’s largest partner – replacing ISC, whose races at Watkins Glen, Kansas City, Chicago and Homestead have been dropped. Rest of the program remaines the same. Inaugural race will be held back to St Petersburg as Rio 300 race shifted in Brazil will be held on May in order to avoid a downpour during the race.
