{"id":53473,"date":"2018-07-18T06:35:41","date_gmt":"2018-07-18T13:35:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=53473"},"modified":"2018-07-18T06:35:41","modified_gmt":"2018-07-18T13:35:41","slug":"indycar-returns-to-laguna-seca","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/indycar-returns-to-laguna-seca\/","title":{"rendered":"INDYCAR Returns to Laguna Seca"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"INDYCAR
Image courtesy T.M. Hill<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The IndyCar Series will hold its next three season finales on the bucolic, 2.238-mile WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca traditional permanent road course near Monterey, Calif., the series and track has announced.<\/p>\n

The historic Laguna Seca track was tabbed, last week, to hold an IndyCar race for the first time since 2004, but the date could not be formally announced until Tuesday, July 17, following a morning vote by the board of supervisors for Monterey County, where the track is located.<\/p>\n

A three-year agreement calls for Laguna Seca to be the host site of the final race of the 2019 season with the date set for the weekend of September 20-22. The balance of the 2019 season schedule will be announced at a later date, the series said.<\/p>\n

WeatherTech Laguna Seca Raceway was site of the CART series finale from 1989 through 1996, the latter race known for driver Alex Zanardi\u2019s daring, off-circuit, last-lap \u201cThe Pass\u201d of Bryan Herta in the track\u2019s notorious downhill Corkscrew turn for the win.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t imagine a more attractive destination location for INDYCAR\u2019s season finale,\u201d said Mark Miles, president and CEO of Hulman & Co., owners of INDYCAR and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. \u201cMonterey is a place people want to be and we will bring all of our guests. I think it\u2019s a great choice for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Laguna Seca has been the site of IndyCar races from 1983 through 2004. Those previous 22 races have seen their share of the sport\u2019s great racers in Victory Lane. Current team co-owner Bobby Rahal won four consecutive contests on the Laguna Seca racetrack during his driving career; Danny Sullivan, Michael Andretti, Paul Tracy, Herta and Patrick Carpentier each own two victories on this tough track.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s great news, but I might be biased,\u201d Rahal said of the agreement. \u201cI personally won four IndyCar races there and won my first Can-Am race there. Our IndyCar team won with Bryan Herta and Max Papis and our sports car team won IMSA races there, so I would almost bet you that Laguna Seca is the site of more victories for me as a driver and team owner combined of any track I\u2019ve ever raced on.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is nothing better than the Monterey Bay area,\u201d Rahal continued, \u201cand it\u2019s a great circuit that always drew great crowds, so I\u2019m thrilled to have IndyCar racing coming back to a circuit I love so much. We will put on a good show for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are rationales against the adoption of Laguna Seca for IndyCar racing. It\u2019s very short, not terribly wide and access is limited to the circuit by the small number of main roads available. While Monterey has any number of available hotels – thanks to WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca\u2019s enviable status as a venue – they are all at least 20 minutes away from the circuit by car.<\/p>\n

Still, the IndyCar Series expects the Laguna Seca circuit to present an enviable finish to the season. For the past 12 years, the Verizon IndyCar Series championship hasn\u2019t been decided until the final race on the schedule.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe return of INDYCAR to its spiritual road racing home of Laguna Seca is a tremendous honor and testament to the appeal of Monterey,\u201d said Timothy McGrane, CEO of WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, \u201cand through the support of the County of Monterey will provide a significant economic benefit to our area businesses. We are looking forward to creating more memories in race fans\u2019 minds, like Bobby Rahal\u2019s four consecutive Indy car wins from 1984-87, Mario Andretti\u2019s farewell race in 1994 and Alex Zanardi\u2019s last-lap overtaking of Bryan Herta in the Corkscrew in 1996 that simply became known as \u2018The Pass.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

INDYCAR\u2019s new broadcast partner, NBC Sports Group feels it\u2019s up to the challenge of showing the beauty of the racecourse and the competitive nature it evokes from all racers who challenge Laguna Seca. \u201cWe commend INDYCAR for returning to Laguna Seca,\u201d said Jon Miller, president of programming for NBC Sports and NBCSN. \u201cIt\u2019s an historic track and an inspired place for the 2019 season finale. The 2019 season will be our first as the exclusive media rights partner of INDYCAR, and we could not be more pleased to broadcast the championship from beautiful Monterey.\u201d<\/p>\n

WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca was built in 1957 by SCRAMP, the Sports Car Racing Association of the Monterey Peninsula. SCRAMP is a non-profit 501(c) (4) corporation that manages the County of Monterey-owned Laguna Seca Recreation Area that includes the 2.238-mile traditional road course.<\/p>\n

In recent years there have been battles between SCRAMP and other potential circuit operators, but SCRAMP has prevailed in operating the track, which has also been host to the annual Monterey Historic Road Races, FIM\u2019s MotoGP, this year\u2019s World SuperBike challenge, IMSA, Grand-Am, Pirelli World Challenge and a multitude of SCCA national and regional contests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The IndyCar Series will hold its next three season finales on the bucolic, 2.238-mile WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca traditional permanent road course near Monterey, Calif.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":53474,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3470,5029],"tags":[5614,712,6103,41,1632],"class_list":["post-53473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-racing","tag-anne-proffit","tag-indycar","tag-laguna-seca","tag-news","tag-racing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/WeatherTech-Raceway-Laguna-Seca-credit-T.M.-Hill-min.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-dUt","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53473"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53475,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53473\/revisions\/53475"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}