The press release that arrived Wednesday morning from Texas Motor Speedway didn’t come as much of a surprise. It started off with this announcement:
Due to a lack of title sponsorship, the International Race Of Champions (IROC) has canceled its event scheduled for Friday, April 13, at Texas Motor Speedway.
In January, IROC officials had announced that there would be a delay to the start of the 2007 season and that the opener at Daytona would be skipped due to a lack of sponsorship, so this press release was pretty much expected. In fact, I’m surprised it didn’t come sooner.
And although they aren’t prepared to publicly admit to it, the principals behind the series, brothers Jay and George Signore, privately say they already are looking toward 2008.
Some in the racing business have already written the series off, saying it will never come back.
Not so fast.
This isn’t the first time the series has gone on hiatus.
Back in 1981-83, the series took a break to reorganize itself. And when it reemerged in 1984, the “new-look” IROC focused more on racing ovals than road courses, where it had primarily staged events in its first seven years of existence.
When the reborn IROC came back, it had a new title sponsor in Budweiser, along with hefty manufacturer support coming from General Motors in the form of supplying Camaro Z-28s and extra parts.
More at Yahoo Sports
Bookmark to:
- IROC is apparently finished
- IROC comes to an official end, all assets to be liquidated
- IROC delays start of 2007 season, needs a sponsor
- IROC still seeking sponsor
- IROC to auction off assets
I hope it isnt gone forever, it just needs a revamp!
Here is a Idea for IROC….Why not run the iroc cars on the dirt?? Most of the drivers in the IROC series have been on the dirt. I would love to see the superstars of car racing show us the real tallent that got them to where they are today. As far as cars go put them all in a late model fot the dirt races. Here is another option has IROC officials talked to toyota about being a sponsor of the series? How cool would it be to see them Toyotas? I really hope they figure something out soon.