According to a report posted on Autosport.com The IRL could hold a non-championship race around the streets of Biloxi, Mississippi, towards the end of next year.Former IRL team owner Larry Cahill is involved in the project, which is being looked after by a company called Marquis Sports Marketing. “I am the owner of that track, and that race will happen,” he was quoted as saying by the Indianapolis Star.

Cahill also plans to enter a two-car team for the entire IndyCar season in 2007, and he has already signed Venezuelan female racer Milka Duno for the attack.

An IRL spokesman added that the race could happen, but that it would be a non-championship round due to existing contracts. The race is expected to be held in either September or October, after the official IRL season finishes at Chicagoland on September 9th.

After all the publicity and strident ruling from the FIA that no single country will be allowed to host two Grands Prix in a single season any more, it seems that as soon as the rule is set, it’s broken.

Germany agreed to drop the European GP and alternate its race between Hockenheim and the Nurburgring, and Italy lost the Imola hosted San Marino GP in favor of keeping its national race at Monza – But…

The BBC  is now reporting that  ”Imola’s chances of continuing to stage F1’s San Marino Grand Prix have been boosted by news that redevelopment work will start at the track on 4 October.  The circuit is hoping to host the extra grand prix added to the F1 calendar this week when it was expanded from 17 to 18 races for the 2007 season. No race is currently scheduled for the last weekend in April. The Italian government said the aim was for “the grand prix to be held on 29 April 2007 and in following years”.

This week saw the announcement of a new $350M speedway complex to be built in the Mobile, AL area. According to a segment on Speed TV’s Wind Tunnel last night, investors for the project include Dale Earnhardt Jr. and other members of the Earnhardt family. It also appears that the facility will start off with a seating capacity of 70,000 which indicates that the owners must be pretty confident of landing some major series dates very quickly. Of course the Earnhardts are close to the France family, who control NASCAR, so a Nextel Cup date isn’t an impossibility.

Then I read at Crash.net that the facility will also include a “road course designed for single-seater racing, including Formula One.“

F1 !!

Now that is a big ambition. Yet The F1 power brokers have shown a recent preference for new purpose built tracks over the traditional natural terrain road courses, and the date for US Grand Prix at Indy is on a year by year basis at the moment – so who knows by the time this new facility opens in 2009 the US GP may yet have another home.