League heads for California

The 2-mile oval, which also holds a round of the rival CART Championship Series, is the latest track to welcome the IRL, which will expand to 15 rounds for 2002. The March 24 event will be the third race of the year.

IRL president Tony George has never hidden his desire to secure a race at the California Speedway. "The Los Angeles market is very important to our league from a corporate sponsorship and media awareness standpoint," he said. "In addition, we experienced an unprecedented amount of positive response to our oval racing product from fans throughout the 2001 season. I am confident this enthusiasm will continue to grow even more in 2002, especially when the great race fans in Southern California experience the IRL.

"I know our teams and drivers are looking forward to all that the California Speedway and the community has to offer."

The track's president Bill Miller expressed his excitement at hosting an IRL race for the first time. "California Speedway is proud to welcome the IRL to our family of events," he said. "We have been saying for some time that we want to grow the number of events at the speedway, and adding the IRL to our traditional schedule that we've had for the last five years, takes another step toward accomplishing that goal. We look forward to working with the IRL as the series ventures to the West Coast for the first time."

Fontana is the eighth track owned by the International Speedway Corporation to join the IRL. The other sister ovals are Homestead, Phoenix, Nazareth, Michigan and the new Chicagoland and Kansas tracks, both of which hosted their first IRL rounds this year.

Michigan was one of CART's most traditional and highly-rated venues, but it has cut loose from Champ Car racing for next year to switch to the IRL. But Fontana will continue to host CART in 2002 and will be the only superspeedway on the series' calendar.


Homestead-Miami Speedway
Phoenix International Raceway
California Speedway
Nazareth Speedway
Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Texas Motor Speedway*
Pike Peak International Raceway
Richmond International Raceway*
Kansas Speedway
Nashville Superspeedway*
Michigan International Speedway
Kentucky Speedway
Gateway International Raceway
Chicagoland Speedway
Texas Motor Speedway

* = night races