Indianapolis to host round of MotoGP championship

Indianapolis will host a round of the MotoGP world championship next year, bringing motorcycle racing back to The Brickyard for the first time in nearly a century, organisers said on Monday.

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) said in a statement that they and Dorna, commercial rights holder for MotoGP, had reached a multi-year agreement starting with the Indianapolis Grand Prix on Sept. 14 next year.

The race will be the second U.S. round of the MotoGP championship, with the U.S. Grand Prix held at Laguna Seca in California.

The 2.5 mile oval, home of the Indy 500 and NASCAR's Brickyard 400, last hosted a motorcycle event on Aug. 14, 1909.

Monday's announcement followed confirmation last week that Formula One would not return to Indianapolis for the U.S. Grand Prix next year.

The MotoGP circuit at the Speedway will be a new 16-turn 4.1km road course, with riders racing in an anti-clockwise direction.

"The very first motorised race at IMS was on two wheels, so it's only fitting that motorcycles are returning as we approach the 100th anniversary of the track," said IMS president and chief executive Joie Chitwood in a statement.

MotoGP's current world champion is American, Honda's Kentucky-born Nicky Hayden.

"The United States is obviously a very important market to us, and when we returned to Laguna Seca a couple of years ago for the Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix, it was an instant success," said Dorna chief executive Carmelo Ezpeleta.

"Now to be able to say we have two MotoGP events in the United States shows just how far our sport has come in recent years," he added.

(Source: Reuters)