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Virginia International Raceway

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The provisional calendar for the MotoAmerica AMA/FIM North American Road Race Championship has been released, and it features a 10-stop tour for American road racing.

The 2017 calendar looks like an improvement over the 2016 schedule, with fewer gaps between races and no repeat venues. Fans will also welcome the return of Sonoma Raceway (that’s Sears Point to you locals) to the calendar, as well as the debut of Pittsburgh International Race Complex (one of my personal favorite tracks).

Geographically, the 2017 MotoAmerica calendar makes a lot more sense too, with more of a logical progression across the map between races, a benefit for teams and logistics personnel.

Fans from around the USA should be able to get to at least one round within a day’s travel by car, which should help attendance numbers.

There is positive momentum around America’s new MotoAmerica series, which will takeover duties from DMG and AMA Pro Road Racing, starting next season. We have already seen the series’ new class structure, which makes significant steps to parallel what’s going on in the World Superbike Championship.

Today, we see MotoAmerica’s efforts on its racing schedule, a hot-ticket item after DMG’s five, then six, race schedule this season. American fans should rejoice, as eight races are on the calendar, which reads like a greatest hits album of American race tracks.

Supporting both American grand prix at COTA and Indy, as well as the WSBK round at Laguna Seca, the provisional MotoAmerica calendar includes, Road Atlanta, VIR, Road America, Barber, and NJMP. West Coast racing fans are still S.O.L. though, with only one race west of The Rockies on the docket thus far.

AMA Pro Racing and the Virginia International Raceway have been having a war of the press releases the past few days, as it was announced that AMA road racing will not be taking place at the fabled mid-Atlantic track later next month. With AMA Pro Racing first announcing on Monday that the event scheduled for August 12th-14th was cancelled, the sentence immediately following that statement must have struck a nerve with VIR, as it read: “Despite AMA Pro Racing’s efforts to preserve the originally scheduled August 12-14 event, VIR staff notified AMA Pro Racing late Monday, July 11, of its final decision not to host or promote the race weekend.”

VIR followed up on Tuesday with a statement of it’s own, lambasting AMA Pro Racing for putting the blame on the Virginia track, and shifted the accusations onto AMA Pro Racing, who according to VIR was tardy in getting the raceway a contract in time to properly promote the event. With each side seemingly telling only part of the story, speculation has been rife as to what really went down between America’s premier road racing series, and one of our most prestigious venues.

Though we have no inside-knowledge of what transpired between the two parties, friction between tracks and promoters typically comes down to pie slices, and who gets the bigger piece. With VIR’s 10-year contract to host AMA Pro Racing in expiration, the renegotiation of the contract apparently fell apart. Reading between the lines on the press releases, it would seem to us that while negotiations have been ongoing, AMA Pro Racing gave VIR its final offer, which the track did not accept. While it is impossible to say who is right or wrong in this blow-out, it’s pretty easy to tell who the big losers are: the fans. Press releases after the jump.

The AMA released a “preliminary” calendar for the 2011 road racing season Wednesday, consisting of just eight rounds.  After a much-ballyhooed rescheduling of the Daytona 200 to a night race, 2011 will again see the premier race of the season in the afternoon. With plenty of time between the currently scheduled races at Infineon Raceway, Miller Motorsports Park (the same weekend as World Superbike), Road America, Mid-Ohio, Laguna Seca (the same weekend as MotoGP), Virginia International Raceway, and New Jersey Motorsports Park, it does appear possible that the schedule could fill out as the off-season progresses.

The 2011 season marks the return of AMA road racing to Miller since 2008, and is only the fourth time the series has descended on the circuit. Roger Hayden, returning to AMA racing and riding for Michael Jordan Racing alongside Ben Bostrom in 2011, claims he is “probably the only person bummed not to see road Atlanta on the schedule,” according to his . It is surprising that Road Atlanta is not featured on the schedule, though the lack of racing at the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California isn’t exactly shocking, as that round was never as successful as hoped. Since neither of those two races have been carried over from last season’s schedule, just over two months passes between the 200 and the next race at Infineon.

AMA Pro Racing had to use this photo finish to decide who won Race 1 of the Daytona Sportbike series at Virginia International Raceway this weekend. Coming up to the finish line #30 Bobby Fong is sling-shotting past #36 Martin Cardenas, as both riders vie for the race win. Official standings place the victory margin at 0.001 seconds. Can you make the call as to who won? Race results after the jump.