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IndyCar doubleheaders set for Mid-Ohio, Gateway
As forecast last week by RACER, the 2020 IndyCar schedule is about to get a big mid-season adjustment.
IndyCar is expected to announce Monday that Mid-Ohio and Gateway will become doubleheaders, while the scheduled September race in Portland will be canceled and Laguna Seca is very doubtful.
Originally set to be a two-day show with practice and qualifying on August 8 and the seventh race of the season on August 9, Mid-Ohio will now host races Saturday and Sunday on the iconic road course. World Wide Technology Raceway (Gateway) in Madison, Ill. will now stage on oval race on August 29 in addition to the originally-scheduled race on August 30. Both will be afternoon races.
Portland was scheduled for September 13, but because of the coronavirus spike, Oregon Governor Kate Brown recently ruled no more than 100 people could be at any public gathering, which shot down IndyCar's hopes of staging its race.
A doubleheader at Laguna Seca on Sept. 19-20 is in jeopardy due to California's surging COVID-19 cases, coupled with the fact that IndyCar is very unlikely to travel all the way to the west coast for one track.
That would leave the month of September without a race, and IndyCar will likely have to go to a doubleheader on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course on October 2-3 to try and get the series closer to 14 races. St. Petersburg is scheduled to close the year on Oct. 25.
Robin Miller
Robin Miller flunked out of Ball State after two quarters, but got a job stooging for Jim Hurtubise at the 1968 Indianapolis 500 when Herk's was the last roadster to ever make the race. He got hired at The Indianapolis Star a month later and talked his way into the sports department, where he began covering USAC and IndyCar racing. He got fired at The Star for being anti-Tony George, but ESPN hired him to write and do RPM2Nite. Then he went to SPEED and worked on WIND TUNNEL and SPEED REPORT. He started at RACER when SPEED folded, and went on to write for RACER.com and RACER magazine while also working for NBCSN on IndyCar telecasts.
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