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Top-level professional roadracing in the United States in 2019 will look a lot like 2018, except less of it. WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca has announced there will be no U.S. round of the Superbike World Championship next year and MotoAmerica has released its 2019 schedule, which is the same except for a few tweaks.
Update: On Dec. 19, Dorna announced that there would be a U.S. round of the Superbike World Championship at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca after all. The race is scheduled for July 12 through 14, right before the summer break.
Instead of the usual mid-summer weekend of World Superbike and an abbreviated schedule of MotoAmerica racing, for 2019 WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca is planning a "Monterey Motorcycle Festival" with "racing legends, celebrities, vintage racing and heritage GP racing motorcycle exhibitions," among other activities in addition to the MotoAmerica racing. Oddly, the Laguna Seca announcement said that although World Superbike won't come to the United States in 2019, it "is anticipated to return to WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca in 2020."
That leaves the MotoGP round at Circuit of the Americas, which also includes an abbreviated MotoAmerica schedule, as the only roadracing world championship event in North America.
Meanwhile, MotoAmerica released a provisional 2019 schedule today that looks a lot like the 2018 schedule, with a few tweaks. Though there had been talk of adding another track to the series, such as perhaps New Orleans, no changes were made. Perhaps the good news is that no rounds were lost from the schedule, either.
When I interviewed MotoAmerica principal Chuck Aksland this summer about the class structures, he suggested the series might experiment with a two-day schedule at some events, and that has happened. Four rounds will be two-day events, with all the action consolidated into Saturday and Sunday instead of spread over Friday through Sunday. The condensed schedule will put a premium on teams' abilities to quickly find an optimal setup. The four two-day rounds will be at VIRginia International Raceway, Utah Motorsports Campus, Sonoma Raceway and New Jersey Motorsports Park.
One other change for the Utah round will have the MotoAmerica racers using the complex's 2.2-mile East Course instead of the 3.048-mile Outer Course the series has traditionally used.
| 2019 Provisional MotoAmerica schedule | ||
|---|---|---|
| April 5-7 | Road Atlanta | Braselton, Georgia |
| April 12-14 | Circuit of The Americas | Austin, Texas |
| May 4-5 | VIRginia International Raceway | Alton, Virginia |
| May 31-June 2 | Road America | Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin |
| June 15-16 | Utah Motosports Campus | Grantsville, Utah |
| July 12-14 | WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca | Monterey, California |
| August 10-11 | Sonoma Raceway | Sonoma, California |
| August 23-25 | Pittsburgh International Race Complex | Wampum, Pennsylvania |
| September 7-8 | New Jersey Motorsports Park | Millville, New Jersey |
| September 20-22 | Barber Motorsports Park | Birmingham, Alabama |
