WTCC cancels race at Sonoma

Published by Mike on July 4, 2014

Touring car racing has never been as popular in the United States as it has been overseas. After all, it’s NASCAR that garners the lion’s share of attention when it comes to tin-top racing in America. For the last couple of years, however, the World Touring Car Championship has held a race at Sonoma Raceway in California, but that race has now been dropped from the calendar for this year.

The problem apparently came down to logistics. Although series organizers were able to get the cars and all their parts to the Port of Oakland to be taken to the circuit (formerly known as Infineon or Sears Point), the ship they had arranged to get the teams out of California and across the Pacific to Shanghai for the following race was canceled. After failing to find a suitable alternative, the organizers opted to nix the Sonoma race altogether.

Instead the circuis will sail from the next race in Argentina to straight to China for a replacement race at the Goldenport Park Circuit near Beijing, which the promoters of the local Chinese Touring Car Championship were able to put together instead. Of course with month-long gaps, it shouldn’t prove much of a problem getting there, even by sea: the last race (at Spa) was held late in June, the next one (in Argentina) won’t be until early August, and the new event (in Beijing) will follow in early October.

The replacement event will see three WTCC races held in China this season, joined by the Shanghai race to be held the following week and the Macau race that will close off the season (after Suzuka) in November. The question is, will American racing fans miss having a WTCC race here? Share your thoughts in Comments.

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WTCC cancels race at Sonoma originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 04 Jul 2014 16:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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