Weekend Menu - Week 17

Some bizarre crossover events this weekend, along with a few championships that begin their year:

• Spanish CEV - Albacete, Spain (first round of the top Spanish motorcycle championship)
• World Superbike / Supersport / Superstock - Assen, Netherlands
• A1GP - Brands Hatch, England (final race of the season)
• Quit Forest Rally - Busselton, Australia (Australian Rally Championship)
• AMA Superbike - California Speedway, Fontana, CA
• World Supermoto Championship - Castelletto di Branduzzo, Italy (first round of the championship)
• Cookstown 100 - Cookstown, Northern Ireland (first race in the Irish real road racing season)
• Kansas Lottery $150 Grand - Kansas Speedway (ARCA / Remax Series)
• Kansas Lottery Indy 300 - Kansas Speedway (Indy Racing League)
• O'Reilly Auto Parts 250 - Kansas Speedway (NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series)
• Rim of the World Rally - Lancaster, CA (US Rally Championship)R
• Rally de Canaria - Las Palmas, Canary Islands (FIA Southwest European Rally Cup)
• ADAC ACAS H&R Cup - Nurburgring, Germany (VLN Championship)
• Terrible's Town 250 - Pahrump, NV (Best in the Desert series)
• Rally Matador Tatry - Puchov, Slovakia (FIA Central European Rally Cup)
• AMA Supercross - Seattle, Washington
• British Superbike - Silverstone, England
• Aarons 312 - Talladega, AL (NASCAR Busch Series)
• Aarons 499 - Talladega, AL (NASCAR Nextel Cup)
• VIR 400 - Virginia International Raceway (Grand Am Rolex Sportscar Series)
• VIR 500k - Virginia International Raceway (MOTO-ST)
• Star Mazda Championship - Virginia International Raceway

A few things to mention here... Firstly, interesting to see three entirely seperate sanctioning bodies together at Kansas Speedway (IRL, NASCAR and ARCA). I like to see that kind of thing, it's good for motorsport. Secondly, same thing at Virginia, except even more so. Star Mazda is usually aligned with IMSA and the ALMS, so they're kind of bridging a gap by running alongside Grand-Am. And how WEIRD to see a motorcycle race as part of that weekend. I would have thought that the infrastructure for two-wheeled racing is too different to run alongside cars (I'm thinking of air fencing versus tyre barriers for example). MOTO-ST is run by Grand-Am so the hook-up is not entirely surprising, but I hope that motorcycle safety isn't compromised by running with cars.

The Rim of the World Rally, which I've competed in a few times, is a shell of it's former self, after the Forest Service pulled their permit to run in the Angeles National Forest. It will now be a Superspecial-only rally, albeit one that will feature RallyMoto (another example of the motorcycle-car hookup). Funny, these coincidences...