(TOLEDO, Ohio) – The Automobile Racing Club of America (ARCA) has released the 2011 schedule for the ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards. Nineteen events will comprise the diverse combination of superspeedways, short tracks, dirt tracks, and road courses in the series’ 59th consecutive season of competition.
“We’re extremely proud of the depth and quality of the venues on the 2011 schedule, each of which is very important to the identity and industry position of the ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards,” said ARCA president Ron Drager. “Both the number of scheduled events and the geographic coverage represented by the markets we’ll be racing in are good fits for the series.”
Daytona International Speedway will host the season opener for the 48th consecutive year. The Lucas Oil Slick Mist 200 will serve as the preamble for the same-day NASCAR Sprint Cup Budweiser Shootout on Saturday, February 12. The 2011 ARCA Racing Series schedule will conclude with the series’ championship weekend at Toledo Speedway on Sunday, October 16. In between, the series will appear at a wide variety of venues, making up the most versatile mix in all of motorsports.
Return visits to O’Reilly Raceway Park (ORP) and Winchester (Ind.) Speedway, as previously announced, and the addition of Madison International Speedway will also highlight the 2011 calendar.
ORP, located in the Indianapolis suburb of Clermont, will host the ARCA Racing Series on July 28 in conjunction with the USAC National Midget and Silver Crown Series races the same day. The event will be the eighth for ARCA at the 0.686-mile oval since 1971.
The ARCA/USAC tripleheader kicks off ORP’s Kroger SpeedFest, which also features a Friday event for the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and a Saturday race for the NASCAR Nationwide Series. The ORP events lead in to one of the feature races on the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series schedule, the July 31 Brickyard 400 at nearby Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
The ARCA Racing Series’ visit to Winchester Speedway, the “World’s Fastest Half-Mile,” is scheduled for Saturday, June 25, and will be the series’ first appearance there since May 2007.
Madison International Speedway, located in Oregon, Wisc., will host the ARCA tour on Friday, August 26 in the first appearance of the ARCA Racing Series at the semi-banked, half-mile paved oval.
In addition to its position as the host for ARCA’s season finale, Toledo Speedway – the home track of the ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards – will host the series for its traditional spring date on Sunday, May 15.
Speedway events returning in 2011 include Kansas Speedway, Michigan International Speedway, Chicagoland Speedway, Pocono Raceway, and Talladega Superspeedway, in addition to the season opener at Daytona. The Talladega event will be the 50th ARCA Racing Series appearance at the renowned 2.66-mile Alabama superspeedway since 1969, and the upcoming events at Pocono mark the 52nd and 53rd appearances of the ARCA Racing Series at Pocono since 1983.
Additional short tracks again hosting events in 2011 include Salem (Ind.) Speedway, Berlin (Mich.) Raceway, and Iowa Speedway. The Illinois State Fairgrounds and DuQuoin State Fairgrounds will host the traditional mile-dirt races late in the summer.
Contributing to the diversity of the ARCA Racing Series schedule will be another road course race at New Jersey Motorsports Park, scheduled for Sunday, May 22. The race will be ARCA’s fourth consecutive appearance at the 2.25-mile Thunderbolt Raceway course in Millville, N.J.
Companion events in 2011 include races with the NASCAR Sprint Cup, Nationwide and Camping World Truck Series, as well as with the USAC National Midget and Silver Crown Series.
The full 2011 ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards schedule is as follows:
Saturday, February 12 – Daytona International Speedway
Friday, April 15 – Talladega Superspeedway
Sunday, May 1 – Salem Speedway
Sunday, May 15 – Toledo Speedway
Sunday, May 22 – New Jersey Motorsports Park
Saturday, June 4 – Chicagoland Speedway
Saturday, June 11 – Pocono Raceway
Friday, June 17 – Michigan International Speedway
Saturday, June 25 – Winchester Speedway
Saturday, July 9 – Berlin Raceway
Saturday, July 16 – Iowa Speedway
Thursday, July 28 – O’Reilly Raceway Park
Saturday, August 6 – Pocono Raceway
Sunday, August 21 – Illinois State Fairgrounds
Friday, August 26 – Madison International Speedway
Monday, September 5 – DuQuoin State Fairgrounds
Saturday, September 17 – Salem Speedway
Friday, October 7 – Kansas Speedway
Sunday, October 16 – Toledo Speedway
The ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards has crowned an ARCA national champion each year since its inaugural season in 1953, and has toured over 200 race tracks in 28 states since its inception. The series tests the abilities of drivers and race teams over the most diverse schedule of stock car racing events in the world, annually visiting tracks ranging from 0.4 mile to 2.66 miles in length, on both paved and dirt surfaces as well as a left- and right-turn road course.
Founded by John 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 two professional touring series and local weekly events.
