The Indycar Schedule for 2022; How Does 2021 End?; Notes

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Marti Update: Marti is home from rehab and tonight we begin two days of tests, an MRI and a bone scan to see if we can find the root cause of the problem. We will knoiw the results Friday afternoon and go from there.

The 2022 Indycar schedule is beginning to take shape, with the possibility of 18 races and five ovals on the calendar.

Eleven race dates are set, and the rest will most likely fall into their traditional weekend slots.

Dates we know:

March 13- St. Pete

April 10- Long Beach- not confirmed by Indycar, but is on the IMSA calendar

May 14- GMR Grand prix

May 29- 106th running of the Indianapolis 500

June 4/5 Detroit- Like Long Beach, assumed via IMSA calendar

July 23/24-Iowa

August 7- Nashville

August 20- Gateway

Barber will possibly end up on April 24 and Texas, which will be just a single race, on April 30.

Road America should keep the same weekend as this year, June 19, and Mid Ohio could stay on the Independence day weekend, July 3.

Will Toronto come back? Traditionally, the race in Canada is in mid July, which would slot on the 17th.

The final two races will be a September swing in Portland on the 11th and Laguna Seca the following week. I thought this was the last year of the contract with Portland, unless the deal was extended due to the 2020 cancellation.

Ending 2021- Will California Go on?

COVID developments on the west coast have me concerned about the season finbsihing according to the schedule. Portlad has institiuted a mask requirement for their race, and long Beach requires proof of vaccination or a negative test for admission, but are these measures enough to prevent a cancellation?

In a Racer magazine article, Jay Frye implied that Indycar has no contingency plans in the event of a cancellation of any of the final three races. That concerns me. I think there should be something in place ahead of time. Will we be crowening the champion at IMS after harvest GP 2.0?

Notes

I hope Formula 1 takes a long look at what happened at Spa yesterday and does some serious revision of their rules regarding what makes a race official. Two plus laps doesn’t do it as far as I am concerned. I don’t necessarily have a problem with awarding half points at a certain stoppage point, but it should be at least one fourth the scheduled distance.

My hat’s off to the fans who sat through the daylong downpour only to have the FIA thumb their noses at them. I hope refunds are issued.

One thought on “The Indycar Schedule for 2022; How Does 2021 End?; Notes”

  1. Thanks, Mike, and we’re all praying for Marti!
    I agree with you on every point – hoping that Portland and Long Beach are able to happen, even if they have to go back to no crowd. And they should definitely have some sort of contingency plan in place. Can’t believe someone as skilled and smart as RP doesn’t actually have a plan in his brain even if he won’t admit it.
    And Spa? OMG – what a joke! F-1 is usually better than this. Two laps behind a safety car doesn’t make a race – totally unfair to the competitors and the crowd. Maybe they should have had the drivers run (on their legs, not in their cars) one lap in the rain – see who is in better physical shape. At least it would have been an actual race…

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