2014 Laguna Seca

[Gnam]

Last week MotoGP announced they would not return to Laguna Seca in 2014. Instead, they'll race at COTA in Texas and at IMS in Indiana.


The decision to pull out of the 2014 MotoGP schedule came after the Indianapolis Motor Speedway picked up its option for 2014, Campbell said.

That hadn't been expected, but the Indianapolis raceway received a $100 million Indiana state grant to make improvements for motorcycle racing. The Circuit of the Americas raceway in Austin receives $2 million in state tax credits, she said.

"We can't compete with that. Here there are no tax credits or state subsidies," Campbell said.

http://www.montereyherald.com/news/ci_24207739/motogp-not-returning-laguna-seca-2014


This week, Laguna Seca's newsletter listed their 2014 schedule:

May 2-4 ~ TUDOR United SportsCar Championship
May 16-18 ~ Ferrari Racing Days
August 8-10 ~ Pre-Reunion
August 15-17 ~ Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion
October 10-12 ~ SCCA National Championship Runoffs
TBD ~ Superbike World Championship

Pretty thin. It's just a two month schedule: May and August. :(

[Andrew Longman]

Pretty sad. And if Indycar is at Sonoma instead pretty frustraing. Hopefully sportscars can add it their schedule in 2015. I have to believe that sportscars will gain important traction next year and be able to create enough sponsor/team owner value tha they can expand their schedule to a few notable missing tracks.

MotoGP has other problems. If I were them I would dump Indy and put Laguana back. The Austin and Indy race have seen huge declines in attendance and I don't see that dropping Laguna is going to help but I get it.

[G.]

Why can't the IMS idiots be content with ruining their own racing format, and leave everyone else alone?:irked:

[cameraman]

MotoGP has other problems. If I were them I would dump Indy and put Laguana back. The Austin and Indy race have seen huge declines in attendance and I don't see that dropping Laguna is going to help but I get it.

Ignoring Indy, this would be the second year that MotoGP raced at COTA. How much of a drop was there and how much of the first year's attendance can be attributed to being the first race of any kind at the venue?

[Gnam]

Pretty sad. And if Indycar is at Sonoma instead pretty frustraing. Hopefully sportscars can add it their schedule in 2015. I have to believe that sportscars will gain important traction next year and be able to create enough sponsor/team owner value tha they can expand their schedule to a few notable missing tracks.
The May 4th date at Laguna is the sportscar race, but before the mergification they had two sportscar races. If Indycars switched from Sonoma to Laguna, that would be a good pick up, and Sonoma would still have a Nascar race and an NHRA race.

I was surprised to learn that the MotoGP event lost money the past four years. It's the track's biggest event of the year. I knew the economics of racing were bad, but that seems ridiculous.

[Rogue Leader]

Look at Lime Rock as well... Went from 2 pro race dates to 0....:mad:

[manic mechanic]

The May 4th date at Laguna is the sportscar race, but before the mergification they had two sportscar races. If Indycars switched from Sonoma to Laguna, that would be a good pick up, and Sonoma would still have a Nascar race and an NHRA race.

I was surprised to learn that the MotoGP event lost money the past four years. It's the track's biggest event of the year. I knew the economics of racing were bad, but that seems ridiculous.

Yeah, Seca loses one sportscar date, but if you look at past attendance (~30,000 in May, maybe 10,000 in September), they keep the more attractive (and lucrative) spot on the calendar.

Seca makes more on the Historics than just about every other race date on their schedule.

[Gnam]

Laguna Seca announced the FIM Superbike date will be July 11-13, 2014, taking over MotoGP's date.
Now it's a three month race season. ;)

http://www.mazdaraceway.com/news/eni-fim-superbike-world-championship-returns-mazda-raceway-laguna-seca-july-11-13-2014