By Josh Farmer, IndyCar Reporter
A return by IndyCar to Auto Club Speedway as a replacement event for the canceled Grand Prix of Boston seems unlikely.
Dave Allen, president of Auto Club Speedway, told Tribute Racing that the lines of communication are open, but admitted that there would be some issues with scheduling a race.
“Our door is always open to listen, but we have not been contacted by INDYCAR. And even if we were, it’d be hard to shuffle the track calendar we currently have in place to accommodate a request.”
The cancellation of the Boston Grand Prix opens up a date on the calendar by way of Labor Day weekend, which ACS had in 2014.
Auto Club Speedway hosted the MavTV 500 as the series finale in 2012-2014, first in mid-September in 2012, mid-October in 2013 before moving to Labor Day in 2014 as part of IndyCar’s schedule realignment. The race was ultimately pushed forward to June in 2015. The race, won by Graham Rahal, saw a record 80 lead changes but suffered a low fan turnout.
The track and the series were unable to agree to a date and the track was dropped from the 2016 calendar.
The track does have Labor Day open on their calendar, but in 2014, then track president Gillian Zucker told The Daily Bulletin that a race on Labor Day weekend was not a good date for the track, which ultimately led to the race being moved to late June.
It is known that Sonoma Raceway, located 452 miles north of Auto Club Speedway, holds the exclusive rights to the series’ season finale,which is scheduled for September 18, so moving the race past that would not be feasible either.
The Porsche Club is scheduled to race on the track’s infield road course on September 10-11 while the rest of the month has the track playing host to various racing schools.
Image: Chris Jones/IndyCar
