First Race of Champions on U.S. Soil to be Held in Miami in 2017

The Olympics quenches sports fans’ thirst for international competition, but leaves motorsports fans wanting a spectacle of their own. Such an event exists: the Race of Champions (ROC). And in 2017, the games will be held in the United States for the first time ever.

ROC announced that the next race will be held inside Miami’s Marlins Park on January 21-22, 2017. The baseball stadium was built in 2012 and seats more than 37,000 people. The 2017 ROC will also mark the first time a baseball field is used. A specially designed tarmac track will be built around the field, and will be used in the two main events, the Race of Champions itself and the ROC Nations Cup team relay.

ROC invites drivers from multiple racing disciplines, including Formula 1, IndyCar, Le Mans, World Rally Championship, Global Rallycross, NASCAR, MotoGP, and many others. A number of different racing machines are used, but drivers compete in identical vehicles for a given event. Four-time F1 world champion Sebastian Vettel will return to defend his 2015 title, which will be contested by the likes of 2012 IndyCar champion Ryan Hunter-Reay and NASCAR’s Kurt Busch.

Tickets for the two-day race weekend are on sale now. If you want to watch the action from last year’s race, sign up for a free trial to Motor Trend OnDemand.

Source: ROC

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