The Indy Pro Series will again offer one of the most diverse and cost-efficient schedules in motorsports in 2008, featuring a record-tying 16 races divided evenly among eight ovals and eight road or street courses.
For the sixth consecutive season, the series will begin on the 1.5-mile oval at Homestead-Miami Speedway, before heading to the streets of St Petersburg for the first of the four double-header race weekends slated for 2008. The teams will also return to Kansas Speedway, the site of the first race in series history, in April, before beginning preparations for the series' premier event, the Freedom 100, at the historic Indianapolis Motor Speedway in May.
"We're very excited to offer a 16-race schedule for the second consecutive season," Indy Pro Series executive director Roger Bailey said, "Just like the IndyCar Series, our champion will have to succeed on all types of racing circuits from short ovals, speedways and the 2.5-mile oval at Indianapolis to road and street courses."
The Freedom 100 begins a stretch of three consecutive races on ovals before the season ends with alternating road course and oval events. All of the road course events will be double-header weekends - including at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, which debuted on the Indy Pro Series schedule with a single race in 2007 - and a same-day double-header at Watkins Glen International in July. The absence of an USGP on the F1 schedule, however, has removed the second visit to Indianapolis.
"The opportunity to compete on Carb Day at Indianapolis in front of more than 100,000 fans is an experience that is second to none for our drivers, teams and sponsors," Bailey continued, "but the double-header race weekends are very important to us too. They allow us to maximise the amount of racing we do, while helping us to contain costs. The inverted fields in the second races have allowed for a lot of passing and exciting racing for the fans [and will continue]."
For the third consecutive year, the season will conclude at Chicagoland Speedway, which saw the closest finish in Indy Racing League history recorded this year, when Logan Gomez beat Alex Lloyd by 0.0005secs.
The complete 2008 schedule is as follows:
March 29
Homestead-Miami SpeedwayApril 5/6
St Petersburg*
April 27
Kansas SpeedwayMay 23
Indianapolis Motor SpeedwayJune 1
Milwaukee MileJune 21
Iowa SpeedwayJuly 5
Watkins Glen International*
July 12
Nashville SuperspeedwayJuly 19/20
Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course*
August 9
Kentucky SpeedwayAugust 23/24
Infineon Raceway*
September 7
Chicagoland Speedway* denotes double-header meeting