IndyCar schedule could see four new venues in 2015

According to a report from Robin Miller at RACER Magazine, the 2014 IndyCar schedule will not feature a lot of changes. It is the 2015 season that could have five new venues, two of which have never hosted an Indy car event in its entire history.

The venues include Road America, Mazda Raceway at Laguna Seca, Circuit of the Americas and a street course event in Providence, R.I. -- all road or street courses. Laguna Seca and Road America are traditional IndyCar hotbeds but the newly-opened Circuit of the Americas has yet to host a major league open-wheel race other than Formula 1.

It has been six years since an Indy car race has competed at Road America but an earlier story in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said that the track could host an open-test in 2014 in advance of a possible race by 2015.

Miller followed-up with Road America track president George Bruggenthies and he confirmed that the conversations have taken place.

“Mark Miles and I have had good conversations and we might have been able to do something in 2014 but with the shorter season, we just couldn’t get together on a date,” Bruggenthies said. “But I’m looking at a IndyCar/United SportsCar Championship doubleheader for 2015. Mark’s interested in that, I’m interested in that and we know the fans are. And it’s not a question of money because I’ve got a potential title sponsor.

“I’m probably letting the cat out of the bag but we’ve also talked about having a two-day, mid-week test here next summer for IndyCar that’s open to the public to keep the juices flowing.”

A possible event on the streets of Providence could take away the sting from losing the popular Baltimore Grand Prix for at least the next two years. Baltimore and IndyCar lost its Labor Day date due to entertainment conflicts around the city and the event was unable to snag a title sponsor to help it land a new date.

The proposed event at Providence appears to have both backing from the city and interest from IndyCar to compete on a 2.1-mile, 11-turn circuit within the capital of Rhode Island.

“We’ve been purposely running below the radar to get everything together,” President and General Manager of New England Prix, Mark Perrone said. “The key to a street race is municipal participation and I can’t tell you how thrilled we are with the city and state government. The whole city and state is behind this and we’re pretty far down the road with title and presenting sponsors.

“We are good to go for 2015.”

Lastly, Circuit of the Americas has interest in hosting an IndyCar race but the soonest it could happen is 2015 because of existing contracts with Texas Motor Speedway and the Grand Prix of Houston.

TMS president Eddie Gossage has been vocal that he would pull the IndyCar race from his schedule if the Series moved ahead with a plan to contest three races in the Lone Star State.

Such a decision would be devastating to IndyCar fans because no new ovals appear on the horizon to fill that void. As it stands, only Indianapolis, Texas, Milwaukee, Iowa and Auto Club Speedway host IndyCar oval races and Miles hasn’t been successful in finding agreements that work for both sides on hosting additional oval events.

“Ovals represent our roots and show off our racing in a spectacular way,” Miles also told Miller. “We’re all fans of ovals. The challenge is finding great events.”

As has been reported, Miles hopes to release the 2014 schedule prior to the end of the season and could do so during to the doubleheader in Houston on Oct. 5-6. The final piece of the scheduling puzzle for next season is the street race in Brazil which may or may not be back.

Now that you’ve read IndyCar’s scheduling plans moving forward, what is your ideal or dream campaign? Tell us in the comments section below.