The IRL IndyCar Series and Kansas Speedway will move their race date to late April in 2007, league and track officials confirmed Sunday. A date has not yet been specified, but the change could affect the IRL’s annual trip to Japan.

IRL president and CEO Brian Barnhart indicated weather and the lead-in to the Indianapolis 500 were the primary reasons behind the move. Since Kansas Speedway opened in 2001, the IRL has raced at the track on the first weekend of July, when temperatures often hit 90 degrees or higher.

“It’s difficult to come here and sit in 100 degree temperatures, and we believe we have some options in late April that will work for us,” Barnhart said. “There are a lot of puzzle pieces left. We have to shuffle things around to do this. We need to make sure all of it fits and find a date that can accommodate everyone.”

The April race at Twin Ring Motegi in Japan has served as the lead-in to the Indy 500 the past four years, a fact that concerns IRL teams strapped by travel demands and league officials trying to generate pre-race interest in the 500.

“We disappear off the domestic radar the month before the Indianapolis 500,” Barnhart said.

The League also is expected to race at Iowa Speedway, a seventh-eighths-mile oval under construction in Newton, Iowa, in 2007, possibly in June. Barnhart confirmed Sunday that Iowa is “definitely on our calendar screen,” but a specific date has not been chosen. The IRL will hold a compatibility test at the track in August, he said.

Barnhart also said the IRL might consider running three races in April 2007 — St. Petersburg, Motegi and Kansas. “That is a distinct possibility,” he said, “and that could include Motegi being one of those events.”

Barnhart did not say how many events the IRL planned for 2007, nor did he address the possibility of unification with Champ Car and how that might affect the schedule.

However, he did indicate that the schedule will expand from its current 14 races, and that some of the new events will be street and road-course races.