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Coming off a year like 2020, the idea of planning a race series calendar brings to mind the old Yiddish saying about "man makes plans and God laughs."
Nevertheless, we do have schedules for Supercross, which is just days away, as well as provisional schedules for MotoGP, the Superbike World Championship and MotoAmerica. Yet to come are announcements for American Flat Track and Lucas Oil Pro Motocross. But any schedule, at this point, is as much a statement of hope as a firm contract. Here's what we know so far.
A different kind of Supercross season
Normally this time of year we'd be looking forward to the traditional opening of the Monster Energy Supercross season at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, California, the first Saturday of the new year. Anaheim One is a major event on the calendar for many in the motorcycle industry, but not in 2021. California is currently experiencing a surge in COVID-19 cases (second most per capita of any state over the last seven-day period, according to the Centers for Disease Control) and restrictions are being tightened. So no Supercross in California in 2021.
The same goes for Arizona, where the series had to abandon plans to make its usual appearance at State Farm Stadium in Glendale.
The 2021 schedule is not nearly as strange as the 2020 schedule, when the season was interrupted and finally completed in a rapid-fire series of races in front of empty seats in Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City, which was practically a sealed bubble. But 2021 will look far different from past years, too.
Though Supercross is an FIM world championship, it never did cross international borders, except for an appearance or two in Canada. This year, the scope is even more diminished. It's still a 17-race series, but it takes place in just seven locations in five U.S. states.
In three of those locations — Houston, Indianapolis and Arlington, Texas — three races will be run in an eight-day span with a Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday pattern.
| 2021 Monster Energy Supercross schedule | ||
|---|---|---|
| January 16, 19, 23 | Houston, TX (E) | NRG Stadium |
| January 30, February 2, 6 | Indianapolis, IN (E) | Lucas Oil Stadium |
| February 13 | Orlando, FL (E) | Camping World Stadium |
| February 20 | Orlando, FL (W) | Camping World Stadium |
| March 6 | Daytona Beach, FL (W) | Daytona International Speedway |
| March 13, 16, 20 | Arlington, TX (W) | AT&T Stadium |
| April 10, 13, 17 | Atlanta, GA (W) | Atlanta Motor Speedway |
| April 24 | Salt Lake City, UT (E) | Rice-Eccles Stadium |
| May 1 | Salt Lake City, UT (E/W) | Rice-Eccles Stadium |
For the 250 class, the old East and West division designations would make more sense if replaced by part one and part two. The first seven races are East division and then West takes over, leading up to the shootout in Utah at season's end. That's why Houston is an East race and Atlanta is West.
So far, tickets are on sale for the Houston and Indianapolis events, with restrictions on the number of fans and with tickets being sold in "pods" to groups of people who are presumably already exposed to each other. Pods are separated in the stands.
Supercross scrambled to pull off a 17-race series in 2020 despite the pandemic and has a plan to do the same in the next few months — assuming God doesn't laugh too hard.
Roadracing championships make plans of their own
Looking ahead to the summer roadracing series, the provisional MotoGP calendar appears to be the most optimistic, in the sense that it looks a lot like the 2019 schedule, as if 2020 never happened. After a compressed Europe-only season in 2020, MotoGP hopes to return to its usual plan of opening the season with races in Qatar in late March, then Argentina and the United States in April, before returning to Europe for the summer. Then the plan calls for the usual four races in Asia and Australia before the finale in Spain in November.
The U.S. round, the Grand Prix of the Americas at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, is planned for April 16 through 18. While COTA is taking deposits, tickets are not on sale yet and it's uncertain what sort of restrictions will be in place.
Just as Supercross won't have its traditional Anaheim opener, World Superbike won't start the season as usual with a trip to Phillip Island in Australia in February. Instead, the plan is to start the season at the TT Circuit Assen in the Netherlands on April 23-25 and continue racing in Europe until early October, then have the final three rounds in Argentina, in Indonesia at the new Mandalika International Street Circuit and finishing up at Phillip Island. The hope is that by then the global vaccination effort will be far enough along to allow travel to Australia.
The current provisional WSBK calendar lists 12 rounds with a 13th "TBA."
Here in the United States, MotoAmerica is again planning a 10-round series that begins, for the HONOS Superbike class only, in conjunction with the MotoGP round at Circuit of the Americas. The only change to the traditional MotoAmerica schedule is the return of Brainerd International Raceway in Minnesota for a weekend of racing July 30 through August 1. Brainerd was once a fixture on the AMA Superbike circuit and also hosted World Superbike rounds three times, but the last time the series appeared there was 2004.
Brainerd replaces the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on the schedule.
Those are the plans for 2021, anyway. Let's hope the reality of 2021 isn't too dissappointingly different.
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