Sorting Out Hints in the IndyCar Schedule

The last few days have left plenty of crumbs on the trail towards figuring out the 2011 IZOD IndyCar schedule.  We'll try to start at the beginning and sort through all the breaded goodness that has been sprinkled on the way.

First, we have the excellent interview at Planet-IRL.com with IndyCar head honcho Randy Bernard.  In his interview with Stephanie, Bernard says:

“I think we’ll be able to release it before August 30th.  There will probably be one or two that we’ll hold because there’s some steps in there that we need to put in place beforehand, and a couple of them will require some board meetings, which would mean it would be into September.  Mid-September, maybe.

Always a crafty one, that Bernard.  Leaving himself plenty of room on the release date.  I've got think that the schedule will come out on Labor Day weekend, or in the leadup to Motegi, to try and generate any attention on that race.

Shortly after Mid-Ohio, Bruce Martin mentioned that with the loss of the Kentucky Labor Day date, Baltimore would probably slide into that date.  Of course, this is all dependent on the Major League Baseball schedule.  Because, apparently people still go to Orioles games.  I was surprised by this development, too.

To add to the confusion, Chicagoland Speedway received a new NASCAR date.  In all likelihood, Chicagoland, along with Kentucky, are headed to the middle of the IndyCar schedule, sometime in June.

The loss of the late August Chicago race has Paul at Planet-IRL.com speculating that 2011 will be the end of IndyCar at the oval, which would be a major loss for the IZOD IndyCar Series.  Hopefully the folks at Chicagoland can look through the ISC-tinted lenses to release that good, exciting, open-wheel racing can sell in the Chicago area.

Just for fun, New Hampshire Motor Speedway fiddled around with its NASCAR race dates, too, forcing the IndyCar Series off their intended date of July 31.  According to USA Today's Nate Ryan, NHMS will see the return of IndyCars on August 14 now.

But that's in the middle of the road/street block of courses.  Does this mean those are coming to an end?  Let us hope so.

Then just, for fun, Brant James broke the news about a major press conference that Texas Motor Speedway would be holding on Tuesday.  Per his twitter account:

Dual same-day races will be the Izod #indycarSeries news from @TXMotorSpeedway presser Tuesday. CART ran 126-miles x2 at Michigan 7/15/79  

What does that mean?  Who knows.  It's tough for me to think that Texas would be run as a day-night doubleheader of sorts in early June.  What I could see is Texas becoming an All-Star race of sorts, running two races at night and inverting the field (or some kind of gimmick) for the second race.  Though with an inversion, if the field isn't, well, competent, that is positively frightening to think about on the banks of Texas Motor Speedway.

And we haven't even thrown in speculation of a finale at Las Vegas Motor Speedway or the return of Milwaukee to the IZOD IndyCar Series yet.  With 20 days until Bernard's first deadline, he's already creating plenty of intrigue about the 2011 schedule