As it has been in both 2016 and 2017, the Iowa Speedway date for the Verizon IndyCar Series has been confirmed on the same weekend in mid-July - thus adding another date to the 2018 IndyCar calendar before the series releases the schedule in full. Iowa Speedway released its 2018 calendar today.
IndyCar’s Iowa Corn 300 will run Sunday afternoon, July 8, with the Indy Lights Presented by Cooper Tires race earlier in the day.
Start times were not released by the track and are usually released by IndyCar either in its full schedule release, or as part of a separate TV schedule release.
The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series runs Saturday night, July 7, with its 400-mile race from Daytona International Speedway. NASCAR usually runs this race on network NBC. The last two years, Kentucky Speedway has hosted the NASCAR races on Iowa’s IndyCar weekend.
That keeps IndyCar in the Sunday afternoon slot for a third consecutive year, rather than being a Saturday night race as it was in 2014 and 2015.
Noteworthy here is that the two other Mazda Road to Indy presented by Cooper Tires series - Pro Mazda and USF2000 - aren’t listed by the track, but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t be added later. Pro Mazda scrapped a 2016 race at Iowa owing to expected lower car count while USF2000 ran its only oval race of 2017 at Iowa.
Although INDYCAR is yet to release its full schedule, many of its dates have been posted by the tracks themselves.
The lone holdup to the schedule appears to be a planned additional race in Mexico City, which INDYCAR hopes to finalize in the next couple weeks, and wants to slot in in the two-week gap between Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course at the end of July and Pocono Raceway the third weekend in August.
The dates that haven’t been revealed as yet - Green Savoree Racing Promotions’ remaining two races in Toronto and Mid-Ohio, plus the Pocono, Gateway and Watkins Glen races - are expected to keep their same dates as in 2017. Pocono and Gateway were pleasant surprises from an attendance standpoint while Watkins Glen’s was disappointing by most measures.
Announced 2018 IndyCar dates so far:
- March 11, St. Petersburg
- April 7, Phoenix
- April 15, Long Beach
- April 22, Barber
- May 12, INDYCAR Grand Prix
- May 27, Indianapolis 500
- June 2-3, Detroit doubleheader
- June 9, Texas
- June 24, Road America
- July 8, Iowa
- Sept. 16, Sonoma