With race-industry professionals from all over the world converging at the annual Performance Racing Industry (PRI) Trade Show, the upcoming event will once again feature valuable amenities and services to assist international attendees.

This year’s 30th Anniversary show, held December 7-9, 2017, at the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis, will include a dedicated International Lounge and translators to help motorsports professionals from all over the world take part in the three biggest business days in racing.

"The PRI Show is an unrivaled global event that enables international attendees to conduct business, uncover emerging technologies, and source the hottest new racing products under one roof," said PRI General Manager Bill Miller. "Attendees are able to meet face-to-face with top racing suppliers and see the latest technology and products through Show features like the International Motorsports Trade Seminar and the new Featured Products Showcase."

Among the international resources available at this year’s PRI Show:
    •     International Lounge: The International Lounge features private meeting rooms, Wi-Fi, printer access, credential badge pickup, and many other services that may be required by international buyers and exhibitors. International attendees can also enjoy an espresso or a cup of tea in a relaxed atmosphere with other racing industry businesspeople from all over the world.

    •     Translators: Interpreters from several countries are available by appointment and at no charge in the International Lounge to assist during meetings with fellow industry professionals. 

    •     Travel Assistance: Visas are required for all international travel into the United States. If you require a Visa letter, PRI can issue one on your behalf once you have registered for the PRI Show. Additionally, the PRI Housing team can assist in securing a hotel room online here or via email at travel@performanceracing.com. 

    •     Special Events: The 2017 PRI Show will feature more than 45 conferences, seminars, and social gatherings, and included are the International Council of Motorsport Sciences (ICMS) Annual Congress and the International Motorsports Trade Seminar. For more information, visit the PRI website here.

This year’s PRI Trade Show will feature over 1100 companies exhibiting in more than 3400 booths showcasing the latest developments in auto racing technology, the newest products, and the hottest trends in the motorsports industry.

In addition, the days leading up to and including the PRI Show, which have come to be known as Race Industry Week, will offer a range of motorsports-related activities in and around the Indiana Convention Center beginning on Monday, December 4. Numerous conferences, seminars, and other special events will offer unlimited business opportunities and provide invaluable insight on the latest technologies and how to apply them.

To register for the 2017 PRI Trade Show, log on to www.pri2017.com.

Verizon Wireless will not return as the title sponsor of the Verizon IndyCar Series following the 2018 season.

The Sports Business Journal confirmed the news Friday after talking with IndyCar CEO Mark Miles.

“We truly appreciate the significant resources—both financial and technical—that Verizon has invested in IndyCar,” Miles told the Sports Business Journal. “Our series and sport have benefited across a variety of fronts as a result of our work together and they have been great partners.”

Verizon has been heavily involved with IndyCar for several years since becoming the title sponsor of the series in 2014. The company has been a major sponsor of Team Penske’s IndyCar program, sponsoring drivers Will Power, Juan Pablo Montoya, Josef Newgarden, Simon Pagenaud and Helio Castroneves at times throughout the last few years.

Verizon was the fourth different company to serve as a title sponsor of the series. Pep Boys was the first title sponsor from 1998 to ’99. Northern Light served as a series title sponsor from 2000 to ’01, but after that, the series competed without a title sponsor through 2009.

Izod joined the series as the title sponsor beginning with the 2010 season, but the brand ended its association with IndyCar after only three years of a five-year contract. Verizon replaced Izod as title sponsor beginning in 2014.

The all-new F3 Americas Championship car was revealed Thursday at Circuit of The Americas, site of this weekend's final rounds of the F4 U.S. Championship.

The new series, which was first announced last month, will feature a Ligier Crawford chassis developed by Onroak. The vehicle incorporates a version of the halo cockpit protection device and is 270-horsepower Honda Performance Development version of the new Honda Civic Type-R turbocharged K20 motor (a non-turbocharged version of this engine is used in the F4 U.S. Championship).

The Formula 3 Americas Championship Powered by Honda will debut April 27, 2018, at Virginia International Raceway (VIR), running on the same weekend with its partner series, the Formula 4 United States Championship Powered by Honda.

The F3 Americas Championship continues the evolution of affordable, competitive, and technologically advanced open-wheel racing that was established by the F4 U.S. Championship that debuted in 2016. F3 Americas meets the demands of racers and teams looking to grow their capabilities into more sophisticated and powerful machinery.

The series will feature at least two 30-minute races per weekend with 30-minute practice and qualifying sessions. In addition to the debut race at VIR, there will be five race weekends at tracks around the United States.

Pirelli GT3 Cup Trophy USA organizer Competent Motorsport has announced the 2018 schedule and a new race format as the series readies to enter its 12th year of competition.

The 2018 season will see the Pirelli GT3 Cup Trophy USA stage stand-alone weekends in which the series will stage each event. The new format not only allows for additional track time for competitors, but also a more consistent schedule from race weekend to race weekend with sessions taking place at ideal times throughout the day.

In addition, the GT3 and GT4 classes will be run as separate races. The GT3 Class, which features the 2010–2013 iteration of Porsche 911 GT3 Cup machines and the 2014–2016 generation Porsche 911 GT3 Cup machines, will welcome the latest 2017 specification starting in 2018 and will run as its own stand-alone class. The GT4 Class will feature the Porsche Cayman ClubSport GT4 as the competition platform.

The 2017 season saw the highest car-counts to date for the Pirelli GT3 Cup Trophy USA series and the two separate races will better accommodate the larger fields.

The 2018 Pirelli GT3 Cup Trophy USA schedule is as follows, with two venues yet to be named.

DATE—EVENT
Feb 22-23—The Thermal Club (Series Test)
March—TBA
April 6-8—Road America
May 4-6—Utah Motorsports Campus
June 8-10—Thunderhill Raceway Park
July 6-8—Circuit of the Americas
August 24-26—Sonoma Raceway
September—TBA
October 19-21—Utah Motorsports Campus

Dave Pericak is leaving the director’s role at Ford Performance as of Dec. 1.

Pericak was instrumental in integrating Ford Racing, Ford Team RS and the Special Vehicle Team (SVT) under the Ford Performance banner nearly three years ago.

After his departure from the director's job at Ford Performance, his duties will be split between Motorsports Engineering Manager Mark Rushbrook, who will oversee Ford’s racing arm, and SVT Director Hermann Salenbauch, who will handle production.

Pericak is returning to the production side of Ford as the Engineering Director for Unibody.

“All the stuff we’ve been doing for the past three years has been pretty impressive, I think, personally, and I’m proud of it. Now, it’s time for me to go and take this global approach and bring it to the mainstream, where we can start affecting the way that we do production cars and trucks on a larger scale,” Pericak told motorsport.com.

One notable achievement from Pericak’s reign is winning the 2016 24 Hours of Le Mans GTE Pro class on the 50th anniversary of Ford’s 1966 victory. Ford entered four cars and finished first, third, fourth and 10th.

Pericak recruited Stewart-Haas Racing prior to the 2017 season in an effort to bolster Ford’s presence in NASCAR and also developed Ford Performance’s technical center in Concord, N.C.

As Engineering Director for Unibody, Pericak’s responsibilities have grown to oversee the interior, exterior and engineering of Ford’s cars on a global scale.

Formula 1 and SiriusXM have entered into a multi-year agreement that makes SiriusXM the exclusive North American radio broadcaster of all Formula 1 (F1) races, starting with this weekend’s United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of Americas.
 
SiriusXM‘s coverage of the 2017 F1 US Grand Prix in Austin, TX will air live this Sunday, October 22 (3:00 pm ET/2:00 pm CT), exclusively on Sirius channel 132, XM channel 203 and channel 963 on the SiriusXM app. The channels will also carry qualifying on Saturday, October 21 (5:00 pm ET/4:00 pm CT). Listeners will hear the BBC 5 Live radio broadcast for each race.
 
The four remaining 2017 Formula 1 races will all air on SiriusXM, including the season-finale 2017 Formula 1 Etihad Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on November 26. Starting with the 2018 Formula 1 season and beyond SiriusXM will air every Grand Prix race on the calendar.
 
“We are delighted to have Formula 1 back on SiriusXM,” said Sean Bratches, Managing Director, Commercial Operations at Formula 1. “Their ability to offer live coverage of all races throughout the Championship to their numerous fans and listeners provides tremendous additional exposure for F1 in the North American market.”
 
The FIA Formula One World Championship is the highest end of open wheeled motor racing. The season runs from March through November and this year consists of 20 Grand Prix races run on road course tracks, as well as some closed city streets circuits. The results of each race are combined to determine two titles, one for drivers and one for constructors (teams).
 
Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton of Great Britain is the top points holder this season (306), ahead of Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel of Germany (247) and Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas of Finland (234). Mercedes, the reigning constructor’s champion, holds the 2017 team points lead.
 
Formula 1 rejoins an extensive auto racing lineup on SiriusXM that includes every NASCAR race and every IndyCar Series race.

Professional Drag Racing Ass’n (PDRA) co-owners Tommy and Judy Franklin have purchased Virginia Motorsports Park (VMP).

As longtime racers, the Franklins upped their investment when they co-founded the PDRA in early 2014. Over the last three and a half years, the Virginia natives have continually shown their commitment to eighth-mile drag racing, according to the PDRA. Their purchase of Virginia Motorsports Park allows them to further support the racing community in Virginia, the PDRA and beyond.

VMP was built in 1994 and features a quarter-mile dragstrip, motocross and BMX facilities, a mud pit for tractor pulls, and an autocross course. The dragstrip hosted the first-ever, national-level event in Virginia. More than 250,000 people attend VMP events annually. The track has been sanctioned under both IHRA and NHRA in the past and is currently sanctioned with NHRA.

Last year, the PDRA World Finals at VMP produced record numbers both in car counts and on the track. This PDRA World Finals is slated for this weekend, where the PDRA World Championships will be determined.

As the 2017 Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series season finale takes place this weekend, the tour announced an aggressive 2018 slate, which includes 58 feature events at 37 different venues across 22 states.

The 2018 schedule begins with the February 2–3 "Super Bowl of Racing" at Golden Isles Speedway. Portsmouth Raceway Park will be hosting the season-ending Dirt Track World Championship on October 19–20.

The 2018 schedule will feature an impressive 23 events that will pay $12,000-to-win, along with 13 crown jewel events that will pay $20,000-to-win (or more).

Two tracks on the 2018 schedule will host the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series for the first time, including 141 Speedway in Maribel, WI on May 18 and Jackson Motorplex in Jackson, MN on July 18. In addition, Volunteer Speedway in Bulls Gap, TN returns to the series docket for the first time since 2015 on March 22, 2018.

The schedule also includes the inaugural Dirt Million at Mansfield Motor Speedway, August 24–25, 2018. The new "mega-event" will allow competitors to compete for a minimum of $100,000-to-win, $2000-to-start at the 4/10-mile oval.

However, the purse will continue to increase throughout the 2018 calendar year via a unique format and promotion that allows dirt racing families, friends, sponsors, fans and teams everywhere in the world to play a role in building the feature's payoff. The total purse for the event can climb to $1 million, which would result in the weekend's A-main offering a $500,000 winner's prize and $10,000 just to take the green flag. Additional information is available at www.dirtmillion.com.

For more information, including the complete 2018 Lucas Oil Dirt Late Model Dirt Series race schedule, visit here.

NMCA WEST has announced that 2017 will be the final season of its Southern California West Coast drag racing series. 


With the “incredible” growth ProMedia Events has seen with its NMRA and NMCA East Coast series, the sanctioning body says “it has become imperative to open available weekends for future East coast events and focus valuable resources and energies where the company will see the most growth and opportunity.” 


The series will, however, continue its popular Hotchkis NMCA WEST Auto-X Series presented by Nitto Tire, which is said to regularly sell out and attract many of the top West Coast autocross participants at the Auto Club Dragway in California. More information, including a 2018 schedule, will be released at a further date.


“We have made so many good friends in West Coast drag racing and will miss seeing them on a regular basis,” said Steve Wolcott President & CEO of NMCA WEST. “The entire NMCA WEST team thanks our racers and sponsors for their support and we wish them all the best in the future. We also appreciate our special relationship with Auto Club Dragway and know that the track will attract additional events for West Coast drag racers.”


NMCA WEST will host a special champions dinner to recognize and celebrate all 2017 class champions. With the date and location to be announced, class champions (except brackets) will each receive a championship victor award and Nitto Tire Diamond Tree Champion’s ring.


NMCA WEST reported members will continue to receive their subscription to Fastest Street Car magazine. Members will have their Fastest Street Car magazine subscription increased on a 3:1 basis (for example – 4 months remaining will be increased to a 12-month subscription). No action is necessary for NMCA WEST members who want the increased subscription.


NMCA WEST members may also request a pro-rated refund. Please contact Jamie Fasbender at 714/444-2426 X118 or jfasbender@promediapub.com for a pro-rated refund.

The Professional Drag Racers Ass’n (PDRA) announced the Outlaw 632 category will be a part of the PDRA program next season, with a fresh name, Pro 632. East Side Auto Transport will retain title rights of the category, which will run at five of the eight races.

The class, birthed in Florida, has enjoyed a strong following by both racers and fans during its time with the PDRA. Named for the max cubic inch size allowed, East Side Auto Transport PDRA Pro 632 provides a more cost-effective option while still allowing racers to tour and compete for a championship in a national series.

“The PDRA has my full support for next year,” said Ken Quartuccio, owner of East Side Auto Transport and Pro 632 competitor. “I’m glad to be back. Having Outlaw 632 as part of the PDRA program has worked out well, and we’re excited to see it continue in 2018 as Pro 632.”

There will be two major rule changes for Pro 632 next season. Any size clutch will now be allowed and each weight break will take off 100lbs from what was required in 2017. Complete rules are listed below and at www.pdra660.com.