Series PR Report
Toledo, OH(November 21, 2012) — The Automobile Racing Club of America has released its 2013 ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards schedule of events, including 21 races spanning from mid-February to early October.
The season will open with the series’ 50th consecutive annual appearance at Daytona International Speedway, scheduled for Saturday, February 16, just hours before that evening’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Daytona Shootout.
The 2013 season will also be highlighted by ARCA’s first visit to Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wis. – one of two road course races – on Saturday, June 22, and a return to Kentucky Speedway for the first time since 2009 on Friday, September 20.
The schedule will conclude at Kansas Speedway for the second consecutive year. The championship race will take place Friday, October 4 – two weeks earlier than in 2012. In between, ARCA will appear in 17 other races at a wide variety of venues.
Versatility will be required of ARCA competitors, who will be tasked with preparing for speedways, short tracks, dirt tracks, and road courses in ARCA’s 61st season.
Outside of Daytona, Kentucky, and Kansas, five events are scheduled at four paved speedways over one mile in length. Pocono Raceway will host ARCA twice for the 27th consecutive year, and events at Talladega Superspeedway, Michigan International Speedway, and Chicagoland Speedway return on the same weekends as in 2012.
Notably, the Chicagoland event will take place on a Sunday for the first time. While the first Pocono race will remain on its traditional Saturday date, the August race will take place on Friday for the first time.
Alabama’s Mobile International Speedway and Minnesota’s Elko Speedway – two short tracks new to the ARCA schedule in 2012 – will again welcome the series on the same weekends. ARCA’s home track, Toledo Speedway, will host a race on Sunday, May 19.
Additional short tracks returning to the ARCA Racing Series schedule include Salem (Ind.) Speedway on two weekends, Winchester (Ind.) Speedway, Iowa Speedway, Berlin (Mich.) Raceway, and Madison (Wis.) International Speedway. The Winchester race will move back one weekend in late June, and Iowa will take a new date in early September.
Contributing to the long-recognized diversity of the ARCA schedule will be the traditional mile dirt races in August at the Illinois State Fairgrounds and in September at the DuQuoin (Ill.) State Fairgrounds.
Road course racing is in the plan for the sixth consecutive year, and two road course races are on the schedule for the second time ever and the first time since 2010. The 4.048-mile Road America course will welcome ARCA approximately one month before the sixth ARCA event at 2.25-mile Thunderbolt Raceway at New Jersey Motorsports Park.
Companion events in 2013 include race weekends with the NASCAR Sprint Cup, Nationwide, and Camping World Truck Series, as well as the new ARCA Midwest Tour, the ARCA CRA Super Series, and the ARCA Truck Series.
The full 2013 ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards schedule is as follows:
Saturday, February 16 – Daytona International Speedway
Saturday, March 9 – Mobile International Speedway
Sunday, April 28 – Salem Speedway
Friday, May 3 – Talladega Superspeedway
Sunday, May 19 – Toledo Speedway
Saturday, June 1 – Elko Speedway
Saturday, June 8 – Pocono Raceway
Friday, June 14 – Michigan International Speedway
Saturday, June 22 – Road America
Sunday, June 30 – Winchester Speedway
Sunday, July 21 – Chicagoland Speedway
Sunday, July 28 – New Jersey Motorsports Park
Friday, August 2 – Pocono Raceway
Saturday, August 10 – Berlin Raceway
Sunday, August 18 – Illinois State Fairgrounds
Sunday, August 25 – Madison International Speedway
Monday, September 2 – DuQuoin State Fairgrounds
Saturday, September 7 – Iowa Speedway
Saturday, September 14 – Salem Speedway
Friday, September 20 – Kentucky Speedway
Friday, October 4 – Kansas Speedway
The 2012 ARCA Racing Series Championship Awards Banquet is scheduled for Saturday, December 8, and will be held in conjunction with the International Motorsports Industry Show (IMIS), which will begin two days prior. The banquet will take place in a new location, the Indiana Convention Center in downtown Indianapolis.
Testing for the 2013 ARCA Racing Series season opener at Daytona International Speedway will take place from December 14-16.
The ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards has crowned 30 ARCA national champions in 60 seasons since 1953, and has toured over 200 race tracks in 26 states since its inception. The series has tested the abilities of drivers and race teams over the most diverse schedule of stock car racing events in the world, visiting tracks ranging from 0.375 mile to 2.66 miles in length, on both paved and dirt surfaces as well as a left- and right-turn road course in its most recent season.
Founded by John and Mildred Marcum in 1953 in Toledo, Ohio, the Automobile Racing Club of America (ARCA) is recognized among the leading sanctioning bodies in the country. Closing in on completing its sixth decade after hundreds of thousands of miles of racing, ARCA administers over 100 race events each season in four professional touring series and local weekly events.
